I “discovered” mobile data on the Eurostar high-speed train speeding between London and Paris soon after the service was launched in November 1994.

Using a then brand-new GSM-based Motorola StarTac mobile phone and a 9600 baud (bits per second) data card that plugged into the PCMIA slot that my mark one and my rather weighty Dell Latitude notebook, sported, I was able to set up a data call and then watch excitedly as my copy trickled off the page and into the ether.