From Telephone Line to Digital Lifeline

Forty years ago, an office could function perfectly well without internet. Telephones sat on desks, a fax machine hummed away, and there was perhaps a local computer network for bookkeeping. If that network failed, it was inconvenient, but the work largely continued. Today, an outage of digital infrastructure can bring a large part of an organization to a standstill.

That shift happened so gradually that we barely noticed it. Internet grew from a special technical amenity into the digital lifeline of nearly every modern building. In this article we follow that history chronologically, and continually translate what it means for real estate, buildings and the people who work in them.

Along the way we encounter a notable imbalance. The technology has changed enormously, but the way we assess buildings has largely stayed fixed on square meters, construction year and energy performance. Digital quality, on which every organization depends every minute of the working day, remains largely invisible.

Before buildings went online

In the 1980s, communication in an office looked very different. Fixed telephony ran through the building's own telephone exchange, a physical device that distributed calls over copper lines. The fax machine sent documents page by page, and where speed truly mattered, the telex network still existed. Coaxial and copper connections carried whatever local networks existed.

Computers were often standalone: a file moved from one desk to another on a floppy disk. Archives were made of paper and filled entire rooms. Communication infrastructure was therefore already part of a building, but the dependence on it was limited.

That difference is important to keep in mind. A disruption back then meant inconvenience: a call that had to wait, a fax that had to be resent. It was annoying, not disruptive. The rest of this story is about how that relationship has completely reversed.

The birth of the internet

The roots of the internet lie with ARPANET, a research network that emerged in the United States in the late 1960s to allow computers to communicate remotely. The breakthrough lay in the agreements about how those machines exchanged data. The TCP/IP protocol was developed for this purpose, and on January 1, 1983, ARPANET made the definitive switch. For many, that date marks the true starting point of the internet as we know it.

Initially, the internet remained mostly a matter for universities and researchers. That changed when Tim Berners-Lee, working at the research center CERN, invented the World Wide Web around 1989: a system of web pages and links that made the internet usable for a broad audience. The first websites appeared in the early 1990s, quickly followed by the first commercial internet providers offering access to individuals and businesses.

The Netherlands' distinctive position

The Netherlands played a notably early role in Europe. It was one of the first countries outside the United States to have an internet connection, and that head start had lasting effects. A key factor in this is the Amsterdam Internet Exchange, AMS-IX, a hub where networks of providers and businesses exchange traffic with each other. Such internet exchanges partly determine how efficiently data flows through a region.

Thanks to these hubs, a dense fiber optic network and a favorable geographic location, the Netherlands grew into an internationally important center for data centers and digital connectivity. Anyone wanting to know more about how these hubs and connections relate to one another can find background in our overview on cloud connectivity. This is relevant for buildings, because the quality of the connection does not begin at the facade but with the entire network behind it.

Internet enters the office

From the 1990s onward, internet crept into the office, cautiously at first, then unstoppably. The technical progression reads almost like a short course in telecom history: the crackling dial-up modem, followed by ISDN, then ADSL and cable, then dedicated business connections, and eventually fiber optics.

More important than the technology is how the function of internet changed. At first, internet was something one computer used, tucked away in a corner of the office. Then it became something the whole organization used, for email and looking up information. By now, it is something nearly the entire building uses.

Consider everything connected to the network today: computers, laptops and smartphones, but also printers, telephony, security cameras, access control, climate installations, building management systems, lighting, sensors, charging points, meeting rooms, elevators and digital signage. What started as a connection for a single machine has become interwoven with the functioning of the building as a whole.

Once, a single computer shared a dial-up line with the fax machine. Now the elevators, the cameras and the climate installation share the same network.

From internet connection to digital infrastructure

An important distinction belongs here. For a long time, the only question about a property was: "Does the office have internet?" Once that became a given, the question shifted to "Does the office have fast internet?" and later to "Is there fiber optic?"

For modern organizations, even that last question is often no longer sufficient. The relevant questions become more granular: what capacity is available, how reliable is the connection, is there redundancy, which providers can deliver, how is the building wired internally, can the infrastructure scale, how is the wifi organized and how secure is the whole system? And above all: what happens if one connection fails?

The point is that "fiber optic present" is not the same as a future-proof digital building. A single fiber connection without a second route can still go down. We explain why one connection is sometimes not enough in the article on redundancy and why one connection is sometimes not enough. The presence of a cable says little about what the building can actually handle digitally.

Wifi changed the building from the inside out

Wifi plays a distinct role in this story. When wireless networks became affordable around the turn of the millennium, not only the technology changed, but also the layout of offices. Where employees used to be tied to a network port in the floor, users now expect connectivity everywhere.

That expectation now extends from the desk to the meeting room, the staff restaurant, the lobby, the elevator, the parking garage and the outdoor area. Hybrid working, flexible workspaces and activity-based working reinforced this. People choose a location based on the task at hand, and assume that connectivity will follow them there.

This fundamentally shifted the requirement. A building no longer just needs to have internet, it needs to deliver connectivity wherever the user happens to be. Good coverage is no longer a luxury but a basic requirement, as we describe in our overview on wifi coverage in buildings.

Cloud changed the dependency

As networks matured, software moved outward. In the past, business applications and files mostly ran on servers inside the building itself. Today, those applications largely reside elsewhere: Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, CRM and ERP systems, video conferencing, cloud storage, various SaaS services, cybersecurity services and AI platforms.

This leads to an interesting paradox. Companies have increasingly less IT physically present in their own building, while becoming increasingly more dependent on that building's digital connection. The server room shrank, but the connection to the outside world became business critical.

Concretely: if the connection drops, not only does the website become unreachable, but email, video calls, invoicing and collaboration all come to a halt as well. The dependency shifted from a cabinet in the building to the cable connecting the building to the rest of the world.

And then the building itself went online

The next step is less visible but at least as significant. Internet and digital networks are no longer intended only for the tenant. The building itself now generates and uses large amounts of data.

Think of climate and energy management, access control, occupancy measurements, sensors, elevators monitored remotely, lighting, cameras, predictive maintenance, parking management, building apps and reservation systems. All these systems communicate through the network, with each other and with the outside world.

This creates a new reality: not only the people in a building are online, the building itself is online. This places demands on capacity, management, continuity and certainly on security. More connected systems also means more access points, which makes the topic of cybersecurity in real estate increasingly important. We describe how these systems relate to each other in our piece on smart building technology.

And now AI arrives

The most recent accelerator is artificial intelligence. AI affects cloud usage, data traffic, real-time collaboration, cybersecurity, smart buildings, sensors, building management, digital twins, data analysis and the daily work processes of tenants.

Some nuance is warranted here. Not every AI application automatically requires enormous amounts of local bandwidth; much of the computation happens in data centers far from the building. So it is not the case that every office today will suddenly need tenfold the capacity tomorrow.

The larger point lies elsewhere. The more digital organizations and buildings become, the more dependent they become on reliable digital infrastructure. AI does not create that dependency, but it does make it larger and more visible.

The history in a timeline

To view technology and real estate side by side, a simple timeline helps. Note the distinction between historical fact and future expectation: everything from "toward 2030" onward is a plausible expectation, not an established fact.

The same development can also be captured in the question a user asks. In 1995 it was "Can I get online here?" In 2005 it became "How fast is the internet?" Around 2015 the question was "Is there fiber optic?" In 2025, "How reliable and scalable is my digital infrastructure?" is heard increasingly often. And toward 2030 the question shifts to "What can my building handle digitally?" The years are illustrative, not exact, but the direction is unmistakable.

Did real estate keep pace?

Now the critical question. Has the way we assess real estate kept pace with the internet itself? For an office, we usually know the number of square meters, the construction year, the energy label, the rental price, the number of parking spaces, the climate installations and the accessibility.

But how easily can we see what digital infrastructure is present, what internet capacity is available, how the building is wired internally, what redundancy exists, how scalable the infrastructure is and what digital amenities the landlord delivers? In practice, that information is rarely or never included in a rental brochure, as we argue in IT infrastructure is missing from every rental brochure.

That is where the imbalance lies. Something that nearly every organization depends on every minute of the working day remains barely visible within real estate. The physical building is described down to the last detail, while the digital backbone stays in the dark.

From utility to digital utility

A provocative comparison presents itself. When developing a building, we find it self-evident to think carefully about water, electricity, heating and ventilation. No one delivers an office without carefully planning those basic amenities.

Shouldn't we now approach high-quality digital connectivity in a similar way: as an essential amenity for modern users? Note that this is explicitly a functional comparison. Internet does not legally qualify as a utility, and we make no such claim here. What matters is the role connectivity plays in practice.

Functionally speaking, that role is now comparable to electricity or water. Without a reliable connection, a modern organization simply does not function well. That justifies looking at it just as seriously when assessing a building.

What the numbers show

The numbers underscore the shift, though caution is warranted when comparing years and definitions. Bodies such as CBS, Eurostat, the Dutch national government, ACM, RDI, SIDN and AMS-IX track this development, and the pattern is consistently the same: strong growth.

Internet use among the Dutch population and businesses grew over recent decades toward near-universal presence. Broadband speeds increased significantly, fiber optic coverage expanded strongly, mobile data traffic rose year over year, and traffic through hubs such as AMS-IX grew along with it. Cloud usage, the number of connected devices per user, and business use of AI also show a clear increase.

The exact figures differ by source and definition, so we present them here qualitatively. The direction, however, is unambiguous: we use more data, with more devices, over more connections than ever before. That only makes the reliability of the infrastructure more important.

The role of IT-Label

Only once this history is clear does IT-Label come into view. The technology has changed enormously, but the translation to real estate can be made simpler. IT-Label is not a certification with legal status and does not replace existing technical standards; it is an independent knowledge collective that translates technical digital infrastructure into an understandable delivery level.

That means looking beyond "fiber optic present" to what actually matters: what is present, what is delivered, what can the building handle digitally, how future-proof is the infrastructure, what must the tenant arrange themselves, and who is responsible for what? You can read how this translation works in practice on the page about how the IT label works.

The classifications from IT1+ PREMIUM to IT5 SHELL make these different delivery levels comparable to one another. An IT1+ PREMIUM describes a building with the highest digital readiness, while IT5 SHELL indicates that digital infrastructure still needs to be installed. No level is "good" or "bad"; it is information that allows owners, tenants and advisors to make an informed choice.

Your next step

The lesson from forty years of internet history is clear. Forty years ago, an office could function perfectly well without internet. Twenty years ago, a poor connection was experienced mainly as an annoyance. Today, an outage of digital infrastructure can bring an organization largely to a standstill. And yet we still assess buildings mainly on their physical characteristics.

Internet is no longer something we use in a building. It has become part of how the building and its users function. This also changes the real estate question, from "Is there internet?" to "What can this building handle digitally?"

Want to know where your property stands on that scale? Start by exploring what the IT label is and then see what the classification means for your type of building, for example for office buildings. That way, you make the invisible backbone of your real estate just as clear as the square meters that have always been listed on the brochure.