The notion that computers could be linked together is 40 yeas old this month, which marks the delivery of the technical paper which coined the phrase "packet switching".

Donald Davies was working at the UK's National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Middlesex when he delivered a paper in August 1968 which detailed how distinct packets of data could be sent over public telephone and later dedicated networks.

Davies then set about actually building what is claimed to be the world's first local area network (LAN) at the NPL, which consisted of approximately half a dozen nodes each with three or four machines attached.

"This was more than just an idea, they actually built the first LAN," said chief scientific advisor at the NPL, Prof. John Pethica

Davies was asked to present his ideas to the US Advanced Research Project Agency (Arpa) which was then working on the development of the precursor to the modern internet.