History of the Internet in Sweden

In Sweden, it was not until 1988 that direct access to Internet was created in the form of the SUNET and NORDUnet university and college networks, which in turn was connected to the USA.

The connection was with satellite link to NORSAR in Norway, via the Tanum Teleport [sv] Earth Station in Sweden.

File sharing and online privacy became an increasingly important issue, especially for young adults who have grown up with the unlimited possibilities of the Internet.

In the 1960s, ASEA was commissioned by Vattenfall to create a computer-based monitoring system to reduce the risk of disturbances in Sweden's power grid.

The TIDAS network included split horizon route advertisement, an innovation by Swedish researcher Torsten Cegrell [sv] that was soon built into the ARPANET and thus the Internet.

Patrik Fältström [sv] was a mathematics student in Stockholm in the early 1980s when he was hired to help build and test the infrastructure for the ARPANET.

In June that year, a transatlantic satellite link connected ARPANET to the Norwegian Seismic Array (NORSAR), via the Tanum Teleport [sv] Earth Station in Sweden.

[3] In 1979, Televerket started its Datavision service (later called Videotex), to which people connected with modems and special software and subscriptions.

In the end, TCP/IP with its flexibility was the winner and some consider that the Internet was born on January 1, 1983 when ARPANET switched from two-way communication with NCP to TCP/IP.

[4] The first e-mail message received in Sweden was sent by Jim McKie from the Amsterdam Mathematics Centre to Björn Eriksen [sv] at ENEA AB in Stockholm on April 7, 1983.

The computer terminal that received the message, a Digital DECwriter III, has been located at the National Museum of Science and Technology in Stockholm since October 2023.

This BBS was accessible on a non-profit basis via a modem connection, and discussion groups included many of the people who would later become important key figures in the coming electronic Sweden: Sven Wickberg, Anders Franzén, Henrik Schyffert and Jan-Inge Flücht.

The society was also instrumental in enabling companies and ordinary Swedes to start using the network the following year when Swipnet [sv], part of the Stenbeck sphere, became the first commercial ISP.

In the same year, Linköping University's Lysator computer association installed a fixed connection in the Ryd student housing area via a microwave link under the project name Rydnet.

These were aimed at private individuals (Algonet initially hoped for 400 paying customers) and got the common man to start surfing in larger numbers.

At the same time, Rickard Eriksson started the community Stajlplejs (which was commercialized and renamed LunarStorm in 2000), which was one of the world's very first social networks.

In the same year, Umeå's Irrblosset housing association was one of the first to connect to the internet with 10 Mbit/s Ethernet at a low fixed monthly cost.

In 1997, Telia tested unlimited ADSL broadband and optical fiber to students and Internet cafés in Sundsvall, in a pilot project called Supernet.

Jonas Birgersson [sv], CEO of Framfab, was called "Broadband Jesus" and symbolized a new type of business leader.

In 1999, Bredbandsbolaget was launched and announced on the same day that HSB's 350,000 condominiums would be connected with broadband, which accounted for about 10% of the total number of apartment buildings.

Niklas Zennström created the file-sharing service Kazaa which, together with Napster, disrupted the music industry as files can be shared between users for free.

The Swedish BitTorrent site The Pirate Bay is also launched, where anyone can download movies, computer programs and games.

The Sweden Democrats' website was shut down on February 9, 2006, after an official at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and personnel from the Swedish Security Service contacted the web hosting company Levonline AB.

In 2009, a highly publicized verdict was handed down against The Pirate Bay; its representatives Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundström were sentenced to prison and damages of SEK 46 million for copyright infringement.

At that time, it was common to watch movies and series through services such as Netflix, HBO Nordic, Viaplay and SVT Play.

[18] These successes have been attributed to Sweden's strong and long engineering tradition, openness to new ideas, early and widespread use of the internet, social safety nets, the Home PC Reform and lessons learned from the dot-com bubble.

[19][20] In 2013, security expert Anne-Marie Eklund Löwinder became the first Swede to be elected to the Internet Hall of Fame and who held one of the seven keys to the DNS root zone.

On March 1, 2018, the Löfven I cabinet introduced a national internet guarantee, which means that no matter where in Sweden you live, you should have access to digital services.

The agency was created to reduce the fragmentation of the governance of Swedish digital administration and is, among other things, the supervisory authority for the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

According to the Swedish Internet Foundation, just over a million Swedes felt that they were living in a digital exclusion at the end of the decade.

Mockfjärd hydroelectric power station, Sweden. The early Swedish TIDAS [ sv ] computer network was created to monitor the power grid.
Initially, the Tanum Teleport [ sv ] ground station (in Tanumshede , Sweden) was jointly owned by Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The facility acted as a connection point when the Internet's predecessor ARPANET went international for the first time in the early 1970s.
Digital DECwriter III , a computer terminal , used when the first e-mail was received in Sweden.
The LHC tunnel, CERN , Switzerland. The World Wide Web was invented by English computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee while working at CERN.
Bill Clinton and Carl Bildt , who were the first heads of government to exchange emails with each other.
The Swedish Internet Foundation acts to ensure positive development of the Internet, is responsible for the Internet's Swedish top-level domain , .se and for Internetmuseum , a Swedish digital museum that opened in 2014.
Niklas Zennström created the file-sharing service Kazaa . In 2003, part of telephony moved online through his service Skype , which made international calls free.
Anne-Marie Eklund Löwinder , the first Swede to be elected to the Internet Hall of Fame and who held one of the seven keys to the DNS root zone , 2022 succeeded by Pia Gruvö [ sv ] .