10/29/2026
The Internet has come a LONG way… and so have we!
On October 29, 1969, the first message was sent between two computers over ARPANET, the network that helped pave the way for today’s Internet.
The message was supposed to be “LOGIN.”. The system only made it to “LO” before the system crashed.
Fast-forward a few decades and the Internet has become a pretty important part of everyday life. From working and learning to streaming, gaming, shopping, connecting with family and—of course—scrolling Social Media… it’s hard to imagine life without it!
But did you know Brooke Telecom has been connecting our communities since 1911?
Our story started with local telephone service, but as technology changed, so did we:
-1911: Brooke Municipal Telephone Company was established.
-1914: Brooke Municipal Telephone Company bought the Inwood Rural Telephone Company
-1968: Dial was introduced, retiring the old switchboard
-1988: First digital telephone switch installed
-1994: Brooke Telecom Co-operative is formed
-1995: 911 is introduced
-1996: Dial-up Internet is launched
-2001: DSL "high-speed" Internet arrives
-2008: Brooke launches the first cellular service and the first rural fibre-to-the-home customers are installed
-2009: Digital Television service is launched
-2012: Watford Fibre-to-the-Home network built, followed by Alvinston in 2015, Inwood in 2016 and Warwick in 2018.
-2020: The beginning of the conversion of all Brooke Telecom Customers to fibre-to-the-home and network expansion through SWIFT, UBF, and SWIFT 2.0 to meet the needs of all our rural customers.
-Today: Brooke Telecom continues to expand fibre-to-the-home throughout rural Lambton County. This year we will add nearly 250 km of fibre and connect hundreds of rural homes, serving almost 1/3 of Lambton County with our True Symmetrical Fibre Internet with upload and download speeds up to 5 Gigabits.
We're proud that for more than 115 years, Brooke Telecom has continued to evolve with technology while staying rooted in the community. We are proud of our local customer experience and the community investments we have made on behalf of our members.
