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my internet story:


I'm an 80's kid, and I got my start with a 1200 baud modem calling the few local BBS's. Then got a 2400, then a 9600, then briefly a 14.4, then a 28.8, and finally a 56k. Somewhere around 9600 is when the local collage offered dial-in to their (VMS VAX) mainframe, which had "internet" connection. Which at the time was a handful of other schools like UCLA and UMICH. There was no DNS at the time, so you had to keep a list of IP addresses for who you wanted to connect to, similar to your own little telephone book. (most places had a "link page" listing the addresses of servers popular with the people that used their connection)

For awhile I even ran my own little server on 56k. (using ANET BBS software) At first it was only up overnight, but eventually I got my own phone line to the house so it could run 24/7 and the folks could still use the telephone. That lasted about a year.

Eventually as the internet started fleshing itself out, I got onboard with MVL, a precursor to DSL. MVL ("Multiple Virtual Lines", iirc?) had the advantage of working on unmodified twisted copper pairs. DSL required the line to be checked, end-to-end, for "jumper clips" which would severely degrade DSL performance and had to be removed. Also, while DSL had to be routed by the telco to the ISP (at significant expense to the independent ISPs), MVL did NOT need to even GO to the telco. It used "dry copper", aka "alarm circuits", that had NO dial-tone. They were used by security monitoring services, and were just a copper pair routed directly between two physical locations. Home alarms were wired to them, and the monitoring company could communicate with the home alarm and also watch for things like "the wires being cut" as a prelude to a robbery. The monthly cost for a DSL line itself was expensive, but the monthly charge for an Alarm Circuit was only $15. It was never intended for digital communications, and the independent little ISPs weren't saying anything about how they were using it. All the telco knew is for some mysterious reason there was a big up-tick in leases of alarm circuits. (they probably just thought a lot of people were getting home alarms) Now the subscriber AND the isp both needed an MVL modem, and I remember paying a bit of a startup cost, but I got nice high speed internet for several years for quite cheap, and this was before the cable company in my town offered internet, so it was much better than dial-up.

It ended when the telco got wise and overnight quadrupled the alarm circuit rate (to $59/mo), and also told me that was just an "introductory" rate and it would be doubling again (to $119/mo) in 3 months. There was another group in town that was offering DSL at a cheaper rate, so I switched to them. I used DSL for a quite a few years. During this time, their NOC got flooded and we were down for weeks. When they were first bringing things up, my speeds were astronomical, getting 5mbps instead of 1.5. This went on for over a month before they got things squared up and my speed dropped back to 1.5. I called them to see what I could to to get on the 5mbps plan formally (expecting it'd cost more but I was willing to consider it) but they flat out told me that "5mbps isn't physically possible". I argued with them, telling them I'd been getting it for over a month but they wouldn't budge. So back to 1.5 I went.

A few years after that the local cable company started offering cable modems, at which time I switched again. It was mediacom of course, so speeds were slow and cost was high, but it was better than DSL. A bit after that the DSL company contacted me telling me they were now offering faster DSL. Too late, I've got cable internet now. It costs a bit more and isn't as reliable, but is MUCH faster than anything they can offer me now.

Years later, a town we share suburbs with started up a municipal fiber internet, and mediacom was rapidly getting erased out of that entire city due to the municipal fiber being so much cheaper while also being vastly faster. So mediacom was forced to upgrade their systems for higher speed and better reliability, and within a few months they'd greatly increased speed and lowered cost to stay competitive. Here, we didn't see a price drop BUT we did get faster speeds, due to "collateral damage". The two cities shared the same system, so we got an upgrade even though we didn't have the competition the other city did.

A decade later, Metronet blitzed the town with trucks, trenching in fiber all over the city, placing EVERY residence within 100ft of a fiber vault in their alley or front yard. I switched instantly, enjoying fiber speeds and lower prices. Mediacom had been losing their cable TV market for years, and had been relying more and more on their internet for people doing streaming and youtube, but now that rug suddenly got pulled. "Mediacom" had such a bad reputation that they rebranded to "xtreme", but I don't think it helped much. Locals dropped them in droves for the new fiber from metronet. They cut their prices in half, and then cut them in half AGAIN but it was too late.

Now a few years after that, our city is offering municipal fiber for less than metronet (that just got bought out by t-mobile) I'd been speculating that the city cut a deal with metronet to have basically free access to the entire city's right-of-way in exchange for the city being able to use their fiber they laid, so it was only a matter of time before the city started competing with them *using their own fiber*. But competition is good for the citizens, so fine by me. I recently called t-mobile to discuss the city's flyer advertising the same speed for half the price, and they *permanently* cut my service cost in half, which was great. Switching to metronet doubled my speed for the same cost, and then threatening to switch to municipal cut my bill in half. Win-win!




last updated 08/22/2026 at 22:26:08 by make_www_index.command version 2026.07.10.A