Internet prices from the good ole days

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Mad Scientist
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#806622 28-Apr-2013 09:55

and people say internet is expensive now :D

kiwijunglist

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#806623 28-Apr-2013 09:57

I played Doom multiplayer on a BBS in Christchurch using my 486 DX40 (might of been DX2-66 can't remember)

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Lias

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#806624 28-Apr-2013 09:59

Hehehehe oh that brings back memories..

If you dialed voyager in a terminal program (such as you used to connect to BBS's) and ctrl escaped out of the attempted PPP negotation, you got dumped at a "hidden" menu where you could use generated credit cards to create fake accounts, and avoid paying the $7.95 an hour.

Seemed like a great idea to a teenager who was pretty much internet addicted and couldn't afford internets, but became less of a great idea when I had a carload of welly detectives knock on my parents door.

I'm a geek, a gamer, a dad, a Quic user, and an IT Professional. I have a full rack home lab, size 15 feet, an epic beard and Asperger's. I'm a bit of a Cypherpunk, who believes information wants to be free and the Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. If you use my Quic signup you can also use the code R570394EKGIZ8 for free setup.

rayonline

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#806627 28-Apr-2013 10:03

joker97: and people say internet is expensive now :D

in terms of the end user, back then a family could get away with a $15 plan for 150hrs. whereas that is more like a $75 plan today or $25 on top of the Telecom only landline fee of $50/mo. but even if you went for naked the internet would still cost you $65 a month unless you get the $55 promotion with Vodafone and have a mobile plan. it's true we are using more data and it is faster but i gather many people just use 5hrs per day if that and the cost have gone up.

was very surprised after seeing a family member's that a landline cost just over $50 now ...

xpd

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#806647 28-Apr-2013 10:21

I ran a BBS as well for a few years on my Amiga (started with 3x floppy drives then moved to a HUGE 120mb HDD), then when the net became accessible for the masses, shut it down and moved to the net... first ISP was Sinesurf, $35 flat rate - but they ran as an IAP not ISP - ie: no support available.

Not that it bothered me being on an Amiga, none of their staff knew how to help me ;)

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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#806653 28-Apr-2013 10:42

I remember joining Voyager in 1995 and paying $10 / hour. Mind you I didn't have much to look at in those dialup days..

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Old3eyes

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#806656 28-Apr-2013 10:55

rayonline:
joker97: and people say internet is expensive now :D

in terms of the end user, back then a family could get away with a $15 plan for 150hrs. whereas that is more like a $75 plan today or $25 on top of the Telecom only landline fee of $50/mo. but even if you went for naked the internet would still cost you $65 a month unless you get the $55 promotion with Vodafone and have a mobile plan. it's true we are using more data and it is faster but i gather many people just use 5hrs per day if that and the cost have gone up.

was very surprised after seeing a family member's that a landline cost just over $50 now ...

well voda has landline + tens of gb data + bestmates x5 + free national landline for much under $100 (at the moment)

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#806657 28-Apr-2013 11:01

Remember paying about $30 per month to Actrix and another $30 per month to my mum. (To pay the telecom ADSL fees that could only be paid direct to telecom back then). So I could get jetstart ADSL. It was speed capped to 128k but was unlimited use. Had to go back to dialup after Actrix increased their fee to $120 per month, and all the other ISPs introduced low data caps.

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#806665 28-Apr-2013 11:12

My first experience with internet access in NZ was 1996? or 1997? somewhere around that time. Was very excited when dad brought home a 28k external modem which was plugged in to our ex-University of Canterbury 486 DX-100. Dialup was via Dad's University of Canterbury Staff account (wish I could remember the cost). We had to use it sparingly as it was charged to Dad's department, luckily he was the one who put money on the accounts and authorised the bills so it wasn't much of an issue. Then moved on to the free dialup craze of the late 90's, z4free was it? Before my father moved on to a TelstraClear 250 hours per month plan (at $20 per month if I remember rightly). My father still had this account up until a few years ago when ADSL became available at his rural address.

Am I right in remembering that AOL used to include their install discs (with a free trial) on the front of computer magazines in the late 90's/early 00's?

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#806668 28-Apr-2013 11:33

I started with a local BBS. In 1995 we used the free month of The Microsoft Network that came with Win 95, then went with Voyager for a month (it was $10/hour at the time). In late 1995 or early 96 we switched to Wave (now Vodafone) which was only $30 for 30 hours - what a bargain!

In maybe 1999 we switched to Paradise which I think offered 250 hours for $20. In 2001 Telecom added ADSL to the local exchange so we switched to Paradise's 128 kb/s service; at $60 ($30 to Paradise for 10 GB and $30 to Telecom for an ADSL-capable line) it was about what we were paying for dialup ($20 to Paradise and $40 to Telecom for the second line).

Over the years it got faster and cheaper, I moved out of my parents' place several years ago but kept TelstraClear because I knew that the service was good (when it worked). About a year ago TCL had major latency issues in this part of the country and I switched to Fyx (Maxnet). Been there ever since!

semigeek

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#806671 28-Apr-2013 11:39

I remember those days. Used Xtra and Clear Net. When I was with Xtra around 1996 I remember it being about $2.50 an hour. Got some horrendous monthly bills back then. Still have the Xtra CD and my first PC an IBM P133 sitting in the garage, which I changed to from Amiga's

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#806799 28-Apr-2013 18:07

kingjj: Am I right in remembering that AOL used to include their install discs (with a free trial) on the front of computer magazines in the late 90's/early 00's?

Yes, indeed. It was a clever marketing move at the time too.

I'd forgotten about those promo diskettes on magazine covers. Ah, the days of shareware when nobody had dreamed up the term, "open source".

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#806814 28-Apr-2013 18:26

Webpages.. bleh.. I remember the days of supplying Dial up "shell" accounts before web browsers where thought of.

I think at the time (STaTus - renamed to ICONZ a few years later) we where where charging $10/M of any traffic used.. I had to recompile every shell program that people would use such as ftp/telnet/gopher/archie etc etc so we could account for any traffic used..

Before direct internet we offered shell connections for email and usenet groups (can you spell UUCP).

Those where the days.. Archie/Veronica/Jughead where not just Comic book characters (not that most of you actually know the Conic anyway) :-)

ftp over email was a great way to get files around the place..

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#806828 28-Apr-2013 18:57

Behodar: I started with a local BBS. In 1995 we used the free month of The Microsoft Network that came with Win 95, then went with Voyager for a month (it was $10/hour at the time).

I used MS Network too, for about a year I think. We were an MS dealer in those days, and got the June 1994 "Preview" CDs of Win 95. It came with MS Network access which eventually started being charged for after the public release in August 95. At that stage, it wasn't such a good deal, so I joined Voyager. They were a good ISP back in the day, with helpful Tech. Support staff, and hosted our first website for a while, before we moved to WebDrive.

rayonline

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#806829 28-Apr-2013 18:57

This is so fun - I installed Doxbox to play a old game. I want ZFree back and not this ADSL/Fibre. I want Netscape too.

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