Internet coverage per country

[Östsvensk]

Satellite internet is available virtually everywhere, and there's Starlink. Many Americans and Canadians in rural and remote regions have no other options than to use that, so it's not just for third world countries.

It must have been rather basic, limited and even kind of boring back then.

The internet launched in 1993 as we know it today. Before that, people were online on BBS servers with modems. In the movie Scanners (1981), he uses a phone booth to hack the government's network.

It was very limited and there was a time limit. If you went over the time, you had to pay extra.

That was always the case with dial-up. It wasn't until broadband that the internet became unlimited, well, save for the monthly cost.

We used it for Mad Libs, and for making fun of a 30-something guy in Georgia for being a WWF fan (there were hobby communities you could join). That guy contacted the company and my friend's dad told him to stop bothering the guy.

You could also be banned from using the service for 24 hours if you use racial slurs. That's what another kid told me a couple of years later.

A very different time.

Well, they are still spying on us. The January 6 Capitol rioters, for example, were charged thanks to their phones.

https://www.wired.com/story/capitol-...fence-warrant/

[~Elizabeth~]

I was introduced to the internet in the summer of 1996 in a public library. A friend named Edward, not a boyfriend, showed me how to get an email address. I think it was yahoo. After that I used the internet a few times at that library in Salisbury, North Carolina. To use the computer one had to give the librarian your ID. A driver's license or a non-driver's state identification card, which is what I had. The librarian would keep the ID until I was finished with my time on the computer.

Then I moved to Florida in late December 1998. I would go to the library and internet cafes to use their computers until 2006. In late 2006, I bought my first laptop, a Hewlett Packard (HP) and I got dial-up until moving in the summer of 2008. Then I was back to using the library's computers and internet cafes once in a while until 2016. For a while I used a neighbor's free wifi, I don't know whose it was.

I bought a portable wifi device from Straight Talk in 2016. Then I switched to using my cellphone's hotspot, I forget when exactly that was but I've had internet at home consistently since 2016.

I don't have a Yahoo email address anymore. I had AOL for a while starting in 2006 when I got dial-up at home. I think I had Hotmail too.

Laptops. I had an HP, a DELL, two Acers, and now a new HP Chromebook.

I use Gmail and proton mail email addresses.

[Östsvensk]

I was introduced to the internet in the summer of 1996 in a public library. A friend named Edward, not a boyfriend, showed me how to get an email address. I think it was yahoo. After that I used the internet a few times at that library in Salisbury, North Carolina. To use the computer one had to give the librarian your ID. A driver's license or a non-driver's state identification card, which is what I had. The librarian would keep the ID until I was finished with my time on the computer.

Then I moved to Florida in late December 1998. I would go to the library and internet cafes to use their computers until 2006. In late 2006, I bought my first laptop, a Hewlett Packard (HP) and I got dial-up until moving in the summer of 2008. Then I was back to using the library's computers and internet cafes once in a while until 2016. For a while I used a neighbor's free wifi, I don't know whose it was.

I bought a portable wifi device from Straight Talk in 2016. Then I switched to using my cellphone's hotspot, I forget when exactly that was but I've had internet at home consistently since 2016.

I don't have a Yahoo email address anymore. I had AOL for a while starting in 2006 when I got dial-up at home. I think I had Hotmail too.

Laptops. I had an HP, a DELL, two Acers, and now a new HP Chromebook.

I use Gmail and proton mail email addresses.

Dang. I can't imagine using dial-up in 2008. I did know a guy who had a 30KB/s DSL connection at that time. I got 55KB/s DSL in 2003 which was upgraded at no extra charge to 800KB/s (upload was of course slower as it was ADSL) in 2005. I used that speed up until 2017.

[Victor]

I first got the Internet at home around 1998, when it was dial up. Can you remember when you first got it?

1998, dial up, too. 56k Zyxel Omni modem. My phone line was busy since then, until 2003 or so when I got first 128 kbit ADSL. In 1 year it rapidly raised up to 10 mbit without monthly price change.

I remember during the dialup era, we had local (district/city) modem pools, which were absolutely free with a forum, I used it a lot. There was 1 hour limit and then you had to dial the pool again, sometimes it took 5-10 attempts to get in.

[Östsvensk]

1998, dial up, too. 56k Zyxel Omni modem. My phone line was busy since then, until 2003 or so when I got first 128 kbit ADSL. In 1 year it rapidly raised up to 10 mbit without monthly price change.

I remember during the dialup era, we had local (district/city) modem pools, which were absolutely free with a forum, I used it a lot. There was 1 hour limit and then you had to dial the pool again, sometimes it took 5-10 attempts to get in.

There were modem pools here too. I had dial-up at home in 2001-2003, but preferred to go to the library and use the internet there which was free and they had broadband (cable). Dial-up was costly for the internet addict. Some kids would give their parents phone bills of hundreds of dollars.