But by oh, I don't know, 1996, 1997, it was like a whole new world was opening up. People still had telephones...but just about then, there got to be so much more.

GIRL: Like what?

HIGHWAY IMAGERY

GRANDPA: Well, take the net...what we used to call the Internet.

BOY: Was that invented in Massachusetts, too?

FOOTAGE FROM BB&N

GRANDPA: Mm-hmm. Seems like Massachusetts always leads the way, doesn't it? This was in 1971, place called Bolt Berenick and Newman, in Cambridge. They developed the internet...and then colleges started using it, too.

YOUNG PERSON AT A COMPUTER, BACK AND FORTH BETWEEN HIM/HER AND SCREEN SHOTS OF VARIOUS INTERNET URLS

But in the late 1990's that internet just plain exploded. Suddenly everyone was using it: businesses, schools. Kids like me. In just five years, between 1990 and 1995 traffic on the internet went from XXX to more than 40 million users. And when someone logged on, their computer used telephone lines to connect to other computers...the average internet user might have needed 20 telephone connections, every time they logged in.

BACK TO HIGHWAY, BUT NOW PASSING A HIGHWAY SIGN THAT SAYS "HEAVY TRAFFIC AHEAD"

People started using the net to buy and sell things...to advertise...even to write letters to each other. You think about it, you can see why phone traffic just went through the roof. The phone companies almost couldn't keep up...the system just wasn't designed for that kind of traffic.

So the system had to grow. And when it did, it grew a whole new world of new technologies.

FOOTAGE OF EXAMPLE COMPANIES

Fiber optic cable, and ISDN lines to carry more information.

Internet service providers, to get you into the net.

Companies that let the internet connect to intranets.

BACK TO HIGHWAY, SIGN THAT SAYS "CHANGES AHEAD"

No one had ever seen anything like it. So many new industries...so many new jobs...and it all started just about then.

GIRL: But, with all those phone connections, where did people put all the phone wires?

FOOTAGE OF NFL GAME FOCUSING ON COACH SHOUTING INTO HEADSET

GRANDPA: Well, the other thing that started happening back in the 90's was a lot of wireless communication. Seems like everyone had a cellular phone back then...you even had football coaches talking to their quarterbacks on wireless phones.

But it was more than just people talking to each other. It was wireless data transmission... wireless fax machines...wireless pagers. And then security products, so no one else could listen in. I'm telling you, it was like something out of Mission: Impossible.

HIGHWAY FOOTAGE, SIGN THAT SAYS "CLUELESS"

BOY: Mission Impossible...what's that?

GRANDPA: It was a long time ago, you wouldn't remember.

GIRL: And you had satellites back then, didn't you?

FOOTAGE OF SATELLITES, OR INDUSTRY THAT SUPPORTS THE TECHNOLOGY

GRANDPA: More satellites than the world had ever seen before. By 1997 there were more than XXX satellites orbiting the earth...which meant more and more industries to build them, and service them, and run the equipment on earth that sent the messages up to them.

FOOTAGE FROM MCET

I remember sitting in school, watching a program on a television set...and realizing that the program started in one place, got beamed up into space, hit a satellite, came back to earth and then right into my classroom. I thought that was such a cool thing.

You guys still use the word "cool?"

GIRL (as if he's being silly): Grandpa.

REPRESENTATIVE FOOTAGE

Anyway, you see what I'm saying. There was so much going on. Voice recognition technology, huge fax servers, picturetell, teleradiology: It seemed like there was something new every day. And every time something new came along, new technologies came right along with it. Everything is completely different today...and it all started, right at the end of the 20th century.

BOY: Grandpa, how do you know all this stuff?

HIGHWAY FOOTAGE, WHITE LINES MOVING PAST

GRANDPA: Because I was part of it. There was so much happening then, it was like telecommunications was reinventing the world. And I said to myself, I want to get involved with this stuff.

CAR SEEN IN THE DISTANCE FROM THE REAR, DISAPPEARING OVER THE HORIZON

And someday, I said to myself...I'm going to tell my grandchildren all about it.

BOY/GIRL: Cool.

MUSIC UP, AND UNDER

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