Victorian Internet The Victorian Internet is a term coined in the late 20th century to describe advanced 19th century telecommunications technologies such as the telegraph and pneumatic tubes . The idea embedded in the phrase is that instantaneous global communication is not a recent invention , but rather developed in the mid-19th century , and that the changes wrought by the telegraph outweigh the changes in modern society due to the Internet . The ability to communicate globally at all in real-time is a qualitative shift , while the modern Internet is merely a quantitative shift . The expression was used as a title of the book The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage . The analogy between Victorian and electronic telecommunications technologies has also been made by Terry Pratchett in Discworld novels , where the semaphore system , the `` clacks `` , and thus `` c-commerce '' is clearly a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Internet . External links Tom Standage on the Victorian Internet Summary of the book : Victorian Internet  This literature -related article is a stub . You can help Wikipedia by expanding it . This technology -related article is a stub . You can help Wikipedia by expanding it . Categories : Literature stubs | Technology stubs 