Internet prices from the good ole days

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#806830 28-Apr-2013 19:00

rayonline: 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.

It was i4free run by CallPlus and then ZFree run by Clear wasn't it?

Netscape Navigator 2.02 FTW!

IE 1.0 was so lame and it wasn't until IE 3 came out, that it was worth considering. Now I've ditched IE and moved back to a descendant of Netscape aka Mozilla Firefox.

rayonline

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#806834 28-Apr-2013 19:14

i4Free was another free ISP. ZFree was provided with Clear Net. The third was Freenet or something ...

The address still works
zfree.co.nz

MichaelNZ

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#806966 28-Apr-2013 22:46

I installed a 512k FRA circuit into home, which I then upgraded to 1mbps, in 2003.

From memory it was -
Telecom Install $1,200+GST
Access 512k $400+GST p/m 1Mbps $475+GST p/m
PVC (across Auckland) $175+GST p/m
Data - about $200+GST p/m for 10Gb international and unlimited national.

Just thinking about it I recall the slippery characters who inhabited certain jobs at Telecom back then...

There was one plus - IPV4 space was easy to get. I had a /25 and a /26, and was sceduled to get a /23. Also, I recall power prices to run my stuff were a lot lower.

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hatchi

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#807026 29-Apr-2013 07:35

I used to access the BBSs at 300/1275 from the university geography dept. then they got a backbone on the internets... ;-)

I also used to run the Enterprise VI BBS on a zyecel running one of the first 19200 modems, on Searchlight BBS on a 486dx2 66

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#807724 29-Apr-2013 22:10

rayonline: We threw away our Xtra CDs but have keep the white plastic sleeve for our own CD/DVDs.

We saw Compuserve and thought that was the big wow from the USA and we of course could not afford it. I think IBM also had internet services too. Yeah BBS, I think I might still have it unless I deleted it recently of the Wellington BBS list. Good old Searchlight software on our 2400 modem.

First uni, I purchased $5 per hour and used it at the labs at afterhours then I went with Ihug all you could use Diamond account wasn't that $40 a mo then stopped it. Went to Clear Net $15 for 150hrs, bro had the $2.50 per hour very briefly before we both signed up for Zfree - remember that, had that for the two years or so. My best experience has been Zfree, wanna turn the clock back now. We had the Clear Net 150 until we went ADSL I think, with Xnet for 2 or so years just b/c they had a low base rate and per GB was $1, no contract, no toll call switch over, no connection fee, then we had Actrix witha promotion which I still think are one of the better ISPs, then it was Orcon, Telstraclear when they had promotions and soon to be Snap Fibre.

Yeah those days 28k then 36k then 56k was pretty cool with PCMCIA - US Robotics, Xircoms, or even better laptops with a builtin modem.

Oh, that ihug disk brought back lots of memories.

My first ISP was PCNet, I remember paying something like $40 a month flat rate for unlimited dial up. But then I found that their support was bad and my school mate told me to join ihug. ihug was doing a special at the time: pay 12 month up front and get 12 month free. So I talked my Dad into it and sign up.

Rumor back then was that they messed up with their payment handling: they received a lot of cheques from their customers' payments but misplaced the remittance slips, so they cannot cash those cheques and credit their customers account (this was pure rumor and I could be completely wrong).

Yeah, so we took a gamble by paying 12 months up front in the hope we got the next 12 months free. Which we did. And my dad and I were so happy.

I still remember taking my Dad to their Newton Road office (next to Shell? one that is opposite to their existing building) to drop the cheque.

I still remember their primary DNS server was 203.29.160.4 and secondary server was 203.29.160.2. I setup a lot of my friends dial up connection back then. =-)

One more thing, I remember going to their existing office few years before they sold in to Vodafone and noticed their directors love BMWs. All the reserved car parks for their big guys were BMWs. They did well. =-)

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#807729 29-Apr-2013 22:15

hatchi: I used to access the BBSs at 300/1275 from the university geography dept. then they got a backbone on the internets... ;-)

I also used to run the Enterprise VI BBS on a zyecel running one of the first 19200 modems, on Searchlight BBS on a 486dx2 66

I feel old! A few memories...

1. I was loaned a 9600 modem at Telecom by a Product Manager, to test. Niiiiiiice. Envy all around me.
2. Years ago I came across my 28800 modem box, complete with its $500 sticker.
3. 2001, 10GB ADSL only $995. Jetstream 400 (MB) Only $49-95 plus $20 for modem rental.

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nic.wise

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#807849 30-Apr-2013 09:07

Oh yes. Started using the internet in 1993 I think - on ICONZ. Worked for them on the help desk when they first moved to Emily Pl from Airdale St (aka The Cave). Helped move some of the gear, including the police pulling us over with "is that your rubber plant in the back, son?"

Email was $50/meg back then. PPP - if you had a 14k or better modem - was $10/meg I think.

Stuffing envelopes with invoices on the office floor with the owner (Chris)

Driving to people's houses to help set their stuff up (chances are, if you joined iconz back then, and had a mac, you talked to me)

Helping (now) Judge David Harvey (then district court judge), who I'm still yet to meet in person, setup a DOOM multiplayer with his son (I think).

The 2 guys I hung out with (aka 2 of my (still) best friends) wrote the installer disks for ICONZ around then, including Netscape 0.9, I think.

IHUG's satellite down, dialup upstream service. Wow, that was awesome game changer in 1997 or so. Whoever thought of that (LennonNZ, was that you?) was brilliant.

Fun times. Oh yes.

Nic Wise - fastchicken.co.nz

LennonNZ

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#807882 30-Apr-2013 09:54

The IHUG Satelite Service was started after I had just left IHUG in those days so it wasn't my idea but most of IHUG's and ICONZ's network was 90% designed/looked after by me when I was at each place.

We used 2BaseT in a lot of it when they first started

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#807900 30-Apr-2013 10:42

AKLWestie:

I still remember taking my Dad to their Newton Road office (next to Shell? one that is opposite to their existing building) to drop the cheque.

Yup, that was the original office, then turned into the NOC with the admin/call center taking over the building across the road which is where I started with them.

If they ever sold the NOC building, the new owners would have to demo it... so many holes punched into that place :)

XPD / Gavin

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#807901 30-Apr-2013 10:46

nic.wise:

IHUG's satellite down, dialup upstream service. Wow, that was awesome game changer in 1997 or so. Whoever thought of that (LennonNZ, was that you?) was brilliant.

Fun times. Oh yes.

Ah, good old IHUG Ultra (or Starnet as it was originally) - those damn SM200 cards drove us up the wall troubleshooting them.... finally found the issues people were having is that the cards would overheat and die - solution ? Buy a crap load of 80mm fans and send them out to customers to put in their cases :D

I was beta testing the "new" Ultra system before I left, where you could use any ISP for the upstream (via a VPN system) - that was fun - had IHUG Ultra downstream, and 128k DSL upstream - that rocked for its time ;)

XPD / Gavin

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#807904 30-Apr-2013 10:52

xpd:
Ah, good old IHUG Ultra (or Starnet as it was originally) - those damn SM200 cards drove us up the wall troubleshooting them.... finally found the issues people were having is that the cards would overheat and die - solution ? Buy a crap load of 80mm fans and send them out to customers to put in their cases :D

I was beta testing the "new" Ultra system before I left, where you could use any ISP for the upstream (via a VPN system) - that was fun - had IHUG Ultra downstream, and 128k DSL upstream - that rocked for its time ;)

Yeah, those cards ran damn hot. Lucky for me, it meant keeping my (small) computer room warm was a non-issue!

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#808191 30-Apr-2013 19:17

rayonline: 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.

Here you go :)
http://www.oldversion.com/windows/netscape/

DjShadow

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#808234 30-Apr-2013 20:32

xpd:
nic.wise:

IHUG's satellite down, dialup upstream service. Wow, that was awesome game changer in 1997 or so. Whoever thought of that (LennonNZ, was that you?) was brilliant.

Fun times. Oh yes.

Ah, good old IHUG Ultra (or Starnet as it was originally) - those damn SM200 cards drove us up the wall troubleshooting them.... finally found the issues people were having is that the cards would overheat and die - solution ? Buy a crap load of 80mm fans and send them out to customers to put in their cases :D

I was beta testing the "new" Ultra system before I left, where you could use any ISP for the upstream (via a VPN system) - that was fun - had IHUG Ultra downstream, and 128k DSL upstream - that rocked for its time ;)

I've seen a couple of buildings in the Waikato still with their "ihug starnet" dishes up, looking rather rusty however

kiwirock

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#808269 30-Apr-2013 21:28

I used my parents Xtra for a while which was $2.50 p/hr at the time, then got my own Efficient Software unlimited account.

We used a 28.8K ISA modem in an IBM 33MHz running WFW 3.11 as the proxy running NZ proud software - Wingate.

My machine was an AMD DX40 networked with thin coax.

Before that I played with 9.6K modems and the local BBS.

My first interest with computers was an Amstrad 6128, with weird sized floppies. Being interested in audio, it didn't take me long to get my first soldering iron and make an adapter for the DIN audio connector on the Amstrad to save and run programmes from cassette tapes on my very, very expensive walkman back then, it didn't even have an FM or AM radio on it. But the sound of data had me hooked on communications and then PC's and modems.

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#809344 1-May-2013 08:14

Cern has just started a project to bring back to live the first web URL.

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