Internet prices from the good ole days

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Elpie

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#116390 27-Apr-2013 19:08

I'm doing a major cleanout and going through some boxes I had stored. Amongst them I found a Voyager Internet connection pack (complete with poster-sized promo saying how the Internet has 50 million users) from the 1990's. With instructions for installing on Win 3.1 and the new Windows 95. Check out the speed and prices!

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#806485 27-Apr-2013 20:23

That brings back memories! Voyager was my first ISP as well, after leaving CompuServe, which was priced at about $30 per hour!!! Then IHUG launched flat-rate internet, and the rules changed completely...

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DarthKermit

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#806487 27-Apr-2013 20:25

I first got the internet at home in late 1998. By then, it was only $2.50 an hour with clearnet.

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DjShadow

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#806488 27-Apr-2013 20:27

I remember paying $50 a month for World-Net dialup (flatrate), usually engaged lines and not great speed (via Telecom IPnet)

Regs

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Snowflake

#806505 27-Apr-2013 21:01

here are some old quotes for fixed internet access. none were from telecom/telstraclear as they were just too expensive - by 4 to 8 times the prices below. For good measure, i threw in the first GPRS charging too...

in 2005:

10 Mbps Fibre (vector) Setup $200 Monthly $300
512kbps flat rate international traffic Setup $100 Monthly $300

in 2004:

512k Frame over ATMAccess: $895.00
Bandwidth: $580.00 (International restricted to 256k/ Domestic 512k)
Monthly Total: $1,475.00
Setup: $1,500.00

512k Wireless Connection
Access: $450.00
Bandwidth: $580.00 (International restricted to 256k / Domestic 512k)
Monthly Total: $1,030.00
Setup: $350.00

in 2003:

Connection/Setup/Monthly

FRA 64k Setup $499 Monthly $699
FRA 128k Setup $499 Monthly $899
FRA 256k Setup $1399 Monthly $1099
FRA 512k Setup $1399 Montly $1699
FRA 1 Mbit Setup $1399 Monthly $1999
FRA 2 Mbit Setup $1399 Monthly $2999

in 2001 GPRS (first switched mobile data):

Monthly Access* Included Data    Additional Data
                                                           Price*

Everyday Casual            $0             n/a            10c/10Kb
Data

Everyday Data 1            $5            1 MB             6c/10Kb

Everyday Data 3           $10           3 MB's            6c/10Kb

Everyday Data 5           $15           5 MB's            5c/10Kb

Everyday Data 15          $30           15MB's            4c/10Kb

Everyday Data 25          $45           25 MB's           3c/10Kb

in 2000:

DDS 128k Setup $899 Monthly $899

Satnet DDS Pro 128k Setup $1749 Monthly $1249

in 1999:

DDS 64k Setup $999 Monthly $999

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Zeon

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#806526 27-Apr-2013 21:55

Its crazily cheap now, especially with UFB brining p2p prices down.

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#806537 27-Apr-2013 22:41

You're talking about WWW. My first home connection was to a local BBS, followed by a Compuserve account. This was around 1992. Compuserve was an absurd amount of money for the service...

I actually ran a BBS as well around 1995, with three phone lines connected to US Robotics 28,800bps modems, a Pentium 100MHz, Windows 3.11... We used a UUCP provider for email and usenet services.

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jtbthatsme

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#806539 27-Apr-2013 22:51

I remember BBS days as well as when broadband came in I was for about 4 or 5 years saying to myslef...Who needs all that speed lol

mjb

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#806540 27-Apr-2013 22:52

I miss BBS days.. :( Renegade was the best. LoRD... zmodem...

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JamesL

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#806542 27-Apr-2013 22:56

BBS' were great, downloading the latest ansi/ascii pack from d38 or playing LORD

Switched to the world-net, ihug, etc about the time Telecom introduced that number you had to dial before the BBS number which effectively killed them off (from memory). It was a casualty of Telecom introducing it to kill off that free dialup ISP, zfree..

Their reasoning was to keep lines free for 111 calls, at least thats how I remember it

mattwnz

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#806543 27-Apr-2013 22:57

Voyager is still running, the brand was brought back a few years ago by the old orcon owner.

sleemanj

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#806559 28-Apr-2013 00:17

Voyager was my first ISP, they were really the first consumer "affordable" ISP around, I remember reading their advert in a TV Guide and being amazed at the paltry price of $5 an hour for off-peak.

I made my first website on Voyager's servers too back in about 1996 probably, (and it's in the wayback machine, or at least some version of it, cringe).

It wasn't that long though that ISP's started springing up.

I went from Voyager to TpNet in Christchurch on an unlimited dialup, lets say, I don't think I was one of their favourite customers owing to the fact that
a) being a poor student I often forgot to pay (necessitating a trip into their small office to give them a cheque a few times)
b) I took unlimited at it's literal meaning, my modem was connected to them permanantly on it's own phone line

Moving to TPNet also dealt the final blow to my own BBS (Project Amiga BBS running DLGPro bought from the sale of the old Equinox stuff, on the Amiga 3000 that until then ran Abacab). I recall with Voyager I dabbled for a very short time with running Fido/AmigaNet using UUCP over telnet to a board in Canada I think so as to get echo mail to propagate quickly, and also vaguely remember that I setup something to allow BBS users to schedule (and pay) a download from an FTP which I would do at night then put the file in some area they could get it the next day or something, but it was quickly apparent that the time of the BBS was gone. Usenet, Email, FTP and the Web was where it was at.

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Elpie

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#806566 28-Apr-2013 02:16

Since this has turned into a trip down memory lane, I'm posting a pic of the install disk for posterity. It will be going out in the garbage this week.

sbiddle

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#806618 28-Apr-2013 09:35

I remember paying somewhere in the vicinity of $10 per MB for internet access when I first joined Actrix, somewhere around 1991.

Wellington City Council were years ahead of the rest of the world offering free internet access via CityNet, a service that literally was ground breaking at the time.

rayonline

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#806619 28-Apr-2013 09:45

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.

tchart

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#806621 28-Apr-2013 09:48

Going back to 1999 I got a huge discount off a PC from ihug by signing up with them for 2 years. Not sure any ISP's build their own PC's anymore let alone give you a discount for signing up! Was a pretty good PC too BTW.

PS Still have my ihug email address :)

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