Universal Internet Time
Created | Updated Jan 8, 2012
Universal Internet Time is a method of timekeeping created by the watch and timepiece manufacturer Swatch that was created in October 1998. Universal Internet Time is supposed to represent a completely new concept on time, where time zones1 and geographical borders are irrelevant.
The whole idea of the Internet Time system is to simplify time conversions between Internet users in countries on other sides of the planet, so the time in London would be the same as in New York, Tokyo, or even on the International Space Station.
Swatch decided to take things a couple of steps further by actually decimalising time. The standard 24 hour clock is divided into 1000 units known as beats. @000 Internet Time is midnight in Biel Meridian Time (BMT), a meridian set up in Switzerland by Swatch, also in October 1998. One beat is approximately one minute and 26 seconds, making it virtually useless for time calculations where accuracy is foremost.
Converting to and from Universal Internet Time
Please note, all times are in 24-hour format, with the exception of Internet Time, which is in the standard @ format2.
| Internet Time | Beil (BMT) | London (UTC) | New York (ET) |
|---|---|---|---|
| @000 | 00:00:00 | 23:00:00 | 19:00:00 |
| @001 | 00:01:26 | 23:01:26 | 19:01:26 |
| @250 | 06:00:00 | 05:00:00 | 01:00:00 |
| @500 | 12:00:00 | 11:00:00 | 07:00:00 |
Use of Universal Internet Time
Swatch released a range of digital watches, displaying both the standard 24-hour clock as well as Universal Internet Time. There also exist Internet Time converters for PCs, Macintosh, and PDAs. Mobile phone manufacturer Ericsson also released a range of WAP capable mobile phones that also showed Universal Internet Time.
