The Power Behind the Button - British Telecom Showreel | BT Heritage

I'm going to have to replace the multiple ads with this full video as there were several issues uploading each advert individually. The first few seconds of this video are frozen due to issues with YouTube and I cannot solve this but it is the same as elsewhere in the video. Below is the description provided by BT Heritage.


Campaign which was shown in the run up to BT's flotation, December 1984.

Threads of glass. Voiceover: "What you see is like the tip of the iceberg. Behind it is a British company that leads the world in laser powered communications...".

Emergency services. Voiceover: "Of the millions of telephone calls made every day in Britain, one number 999 is used as much as 35,000 times a day...". Kiosks.

Shows a K8 kiosk in a remote location. Voiceover: "But for this landmark many people in remote communities would be shut off from the world...".

New Telephones. Voiceover: "Now they have buttons, you can plug them in where you like...".

City Business System. Voiceover: "Here in the money markets of the city is a miracle of technology the money dealers take for granted...".

Leading the way - fibre optics. Voiceover: "Shaping the future in a push button world. A British company which leads the world in fibre optic communications..." .

Communities - emergency services. Voiceover: "Keeping people in touch in remote communities...".

Business systems. Voiceover: "We link computers that control the flow of air freight into and out of Britain...".

National Networks. Voiceover: "British Telecom's National Networks division provides the high-tech communications systems that build business efficiency and make life better for everyone...".

The future. Voiceover: William Woollard "Telephones and television sets are miracles that we may feel have lost the power to astonish us..". James Hunt: "Earth terminals. One of the very first was here at Goonhilly, a big dish aerial...".

New telephone exchanges. Joanna Lumley: "System X is the digital telephone exchange that is replacing equipment of this kind in Britain's telephone networks..."

New business systems. William Woollard "British Telecom's city business system is used by some of the biggest banks...".

Lightlines. Tom Baker: "You're looking at a telephone cable that uses laser light to carry calls...".

The future. William Wollard: "We're seeing the beginnings of a revolution in communications that will change the society we live in..".

The future (shorter version).

New telephone exchanges. Joanna Lumley: "System X is the digital telephone exchange that is replacing equipment of this kind in Britain's telephone networks. Out, in. It's more reliable, clearer, cheaper to run and it won't become outdated because if anything new does come along you can fit it in. Just like that".

Lightlines. Tom Baker: "You're looking at a telephone cable that uses laser light to carry calls. British Telecom's glass fibre lightlines give clearer communications and require less maintenance. But the staggering thing about them is the speed with which they'll carry information. For example the entire text of this thirty volume summary of human knowledge in under half a second. And since they carry moving pictures as well as sound, their use is limited only by our imagination". Voiceover: "British Telecom, the power behind the button".

Business World. William Woollard: "I'm at the top of the Telecom tower, over there is the City of London and of course a big part of British Telecom's business is located right there. Its city business system...".

Date: 1984