Not sure if this is ASB but what would you need to bring forward mass electrification for industry and homes by say 50 years and what effect would that have?
wiki said:Most recent progress in electrification took place between the 1950s and 1980s. Vast gains were seen in the 1970s and 1980s - from 49 percent of the world's population in 1970 to 76 percent in 1990.[69][70] Recent gains have been more modest - by the early 2010s 81 to 83 percent of the world's population had access to electricity.[71]
You need to settle the AC/DC issue sooner, as well as "invent" AC & long range transmission earlier. Absent AC and long distance transmission, electrification is much more local (and expensive) as you need more power plants. The other issue is a perceived need by folks out of the urban/suburban areas, after all if you don't want a "product"...
Electric companies need to be substantial investments in power plants and transmission lines, absent a sufficient customer base/demand not happening. A lot of rural electrification (TVA in the USA for example) was done with significant levels of government subsidy or outright ownership. At least in the USA, you have had a similar situation with broadband coverage for rural areas as costs for providing the service via fiberoptic cable would not be recoverable easily.
The other issue for earlier electrification is that the science and engineering for electrical generation, transmission, and usage (like electric lights) only came in towards the end of the 1800's.
In the west of the USA, apparently, the earliest telephone networks were locally-owned ones that used the existing barbed-wire fences to carry their signals. All as 'party line' networks rather than privately person-to-person, of course, and so [in a limited way] slightly like an earlier precursor of the internet...OTOH, generation stations are expensive, and so is stringing wire.