30 Years of Internet in New Zealand

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Lias

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#2220509 18-Apr-2019 11:35

Seeing as a few others have, I'm going to reminiscence and wax lyrical. After some time borrowing other peoples access, my first "Legit" internet connection was via CityNet after the painfully long application process. Spending forever dialling to get a free line in with my 1200bps modem(aprox 1/50th the speed of what most people later knew as "Dialup"), CityNet didn't offer shell access officially, so you'd open Lynx, then drop out to a shell and be able to use telnet to connect out to talkers and muds. I wasted entirely too much of my high school years on Foothills in particular.

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.

DarthKermit

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#2220518 18-Apr-2019 11:56

What we take for granted now would have seemed like science fiction 20 or 30 years ago.

nunz

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#2221466 20-Apr-2019 14:01

outdoorsnz:

When I was at school, around 1993 there was no internet, but I was allowed to bring my own modem to connect the apple IIs up to local BBS and randomly dial into phone numbers of modems you heard of in local area! Exciting times when ISP's started up a few years later. Back then it was 300 bit modem, but that quickly changed. 1200, 2400 and 96k!

There was a slow internet connection in 1989 or earlier from memory. Using a 150 to 300 baud modem, Telix was able to dial up other phone lines, and send messages. Emails to ADA (USA based) and back took around 24 hours using a peer to peer, opportunistically connected network, exiting from a (hacked?) international phone line in the N. Island to overseas.

The kids now days think peer to peer is new. Hah!!! We oldies were doing it in the 80's baby!!!!!!

nunz

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#2221467 20-Apr-2019 14:04

Aredwood:
Salami:

I remember using dial up in 1993 on a 28k modem follow by 56k modem in 1998

While I was delighted that broadband became unbundle during my uni years I thought prices would drop down by a significant margain in a few years. Perhaps I was too optimistic in 2006 I thought that when fibre finally came along we would only be paying around $50 for unlimited broadband.

I didn't expect NZ would one day get gigabit fibre but I knew from the bottom of my heart Chorus would eventually play games with ISP around pricing.

I remember paying around $64 per month for 128K/128K ADSL old jetstart plan. In the early 2000s. $99 install fee and BYO modem. Which Telecom was later forced to increase the download speed to 256K after someone realized that 128K didnt meet the OECD definition of Broadband. At least it had Unlimited data through.

Today, you can get 30/10 UFB for $60 per month. No contract, $99 install fee, BYO modem. And my original $64 per month cost, after adjusting for inflation is similar to what gigabit UFB costs today.

Chorus pricing is excellent value for money in comparison to what the old Telecom used to offer. And the service that I have had from Chorus has also been far better than what Telecom offered. Approx 3 months, at least 10 tech visits, and lots of repeated calls and frustration to get a copper line fault repaired. (surely Telecom wouldn't give lower priority to fixing faults on unbundled lines, Vs lines used by their retail customers?) While Chorus UFB took exactly 1 week between ordering, and fully installed and working.

No way do I ever want to go back to the BC (Before Chorus) era.

I remember having to explain to a client why they were going to pay over $900 per month for 10GB of data using Clear unless they went to Telecom and it would cost around $100 from memory. TCom was rorting their monopoly to screw other isps.

pctek

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#2222022 22-Apr-2019 09:56

1988: Telecom installs large capacity fibre optic cables with up to 72 fibres around the central business districts of the largest cities. Telecom raises eyebrows and tempers by hiking the price of its Megaplan (2Mbit/sec premium ISDN service) by 114 percent in November ($28,000 to $58,000 per month).

There are 2300 cellphone (brickphone) subscribers to the Telecom network.

Wow, only 30 years ago...........seems like longer. I remember my first dialup modem and connecting to certain slightly dodgy BBs....him with the 6 lines! Oh er....

Behodar

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#2222025 22-Apr-2019 10:02

A little while ago we were talking about some of the old stuff at work. Someone mentioned BBS and I piped up with "I still remember the phone number for the one I used - 3236866". One of the other guys then looks shocked and says "that was mine!"

PolicyGuy

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#2222034 22-Apr-2019 10:29

pctek:

1988:
[snip]
Telecom raises eyebrows and tempers by hiking the price of its Megaplan (2Mbit/sec premium ISDN service) by 114 percent in November ($28,000 to $58,000 per month).
[snip]

And Telecom thereby put a few entrepreneurial folks out of business, a very profitable business that only came about because Telecom made a commercial mistake.

These folks realised that if you bought a Megaplan circuit from, say Petone to Penrose, and then bought unconditioned circuits from the relevant exchanges to customers' premises, you could sell each customer a 64kbit/sec service (and who could want more than 64kb/s? 😉) between the lower part of the Hutt Valley and the central part of Auckland for about 10% less than the Telecom price of the same thing, and when you had sold enough 64kb/s 'slices' to pay for the Megaplan circuit, you still had quite a few 'slices' left over - pure profit. 😃

It took Telecom a while to realise they had shot themselves in the foot - or perhaps for someone to summon up the courage to tell the top-tier guys what they had done.
So Telecom, acting like all good monopolies do, "fixed" the problem not by reducing the price of long haul circuits, but by doubling the price of Megaplan.
Hard cheese for the guys who had been making a mint and who were now out of business.

The ComCom took an interest and the matter dragged on for ages without resolution. IIRC Eventually Telecom said they were sorry and promised not to do it again, but it was irrelevant by then, the market had changed from analogue circuits to digital services.

Ah, the good old days ... not

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Rikkitic

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#2222055 22-Apr-2019 11:10

My first 'serious' computer was a CP/M Kaypro for business and hobby I bought in 1984. I soon added a 300 baud modem and joined a local BBS. Our local version of Telecom was run by the government via the post office and they set up a kind of national BBS (1200/75 baud) oriented to business but also with wider connection possibilities. Later, I joined a hacker group and someone worked out a way to piggyback onto a commercial Internet hook-up at a time when there was not yet any Internet access available to private citizens. I remember mainly using this to get into arguments about apartheid with South African university students. They were about the only ones I could find who were interesting. After that I dropped out for awhile and eventually returned after public access became available.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

cddt

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#2222696 23-Apr-2019 14:36

My first experience with the internet proper was in 1996. Final year of primary school (standard 4, aged 10), there were a few of us smarty pants that the school sent over to another school to go to the computer lab to learn about using the internet. The teachers were very focussed on showing how it could be used to research new topics.

Soon after that we got an old computer at home from my dad's work, Windows 3.1 and a 14.4k modem. Eventually got a new computer in 1999 with a 56k modem.

Upgraded to the "Jetstart" plan in 2002, which was the only reasonably priced broadband plan at the time. Capped to 128 kbps each way, but far more reliable than dial up. NZ traffic was unlimited, but it had a 5 GB international cap, which meant that I spent a lot of time on NZ-only DC++ hubs.

wellygary

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#2222698 23-Apr-2019 14:40

pctek:

Wow, only 30 years ago...........seems like longer. I remember my first dialup modem and connecting to certain slightly dodgy BBs....him with the 6 lines! Oh er....

30 years is a looong time..... people will say oh, it was only 1989...

But think about 30 years before that and what developments happened between 1959 and 1989.....

nunz

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#2222763 23-Apr-2019 17:50

cddt: My first experience with the internet proper was in 1996. Final year of primary school (standard 4, aged 10), there were a few of us smarty pants that the school sent over to another school to go to the computer lab to learn about using the internet. The teachers were very focussed on showing how it could be used to research new topics.

Soon after that we got an old computer at home from my dad's work, Windows 3.1 and a 14.4k modem. Eventually got a new computer in 1999 with a 56k modem.

Upgraded to the "Jetstart" plan in 2002, which was the only reasonably priced broadband plan at the time. Capped to 128 kbps each way, but far more reliable than dial up. NZ traffic was unlimited, but it had a 5 GB international cap, which meant that I spent a lot of time on NZ-only DC++ hubs.

In 1991 somerfield primary school and greendale primary did a dial up connection class to class. It was used for chat, shared story writing and invites between schools for a visit.

A 386 from memory as my first laptop in 1989 or 90 was an amstrad luggable with modem built in.

Downloaded bbs software from a bbs and set up the hosted link.

The look on the kids faces when the pc lit up and started talking (via text) to them.

In 1989 used pc as a support device for a child with reading / writing problems. Got a half page story out of him. Wordprocessor and tape recorder allowed him to tell a story then type it out.

Funnily .. we arent a whole lot further along usage wise except for streaming entertainment and shared internet spaces for hosted data.

michaeln

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#2228871 1-May-2019 17:14

nunz:

There was a slow internet connection in 1989 or earlier from memory. Using a 150 to 300 baud modem, Telix was able to dial up other phone lines, and send messages. Emails to ADA (USA based) and back took around 24 hours using a peer to peer, opportunistically connected network, exiting from a (hacked?) international phone line in the N. Island to overseas.

The kids now days think peer to peer is new. Hah!!! We oldies were doing it in the 80's baby!!!!!!

USENET, via uucp, was running via Victoria University from 1986. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/net.news.newsite/KBYWKQgR5Yc/KgccoZfFK44J

I think Duncan had the earliest archived NZ message in USENET (that I've found). That isn't it BTW.

I could only manage about 3rd.

raytaylor

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#2228902 1-May-2019 18:26

Salami:

Perhaps I was too optimistic in 2006 I thought that when fibre finally came along we would only be paying around $50 for unlimited broadband.

Inflation has been quite surprising since 2006

$80 today was $62.65 in 2006

Ray Taylor

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