[Coco] Stories of Internet Connections - was:Color LOGO

[Sean]

Similar story for me, I moved into the special 'computer science hall'
in 1995 that was wired with ethernet to every room.  Windows 95 had
just come out, and if you had Windows 3.1, I was the one that you got
sent to if you needed Trumpet Winsock set up.  I remember all those
DOS ethernet drivers being a huge PITA.

After graduating in '98, I had to live off dial-up for over two years,
until a job gave me a T1 line to my house.  (Talk about awesome!)  Had
my own Cisco router and firewall in my basement.

After that job, I went to DSL, and up until two years ago, after every
time it would rain, my internet would go out, (many many phone calls,
'no, it's not my router.  it's raining out'.  Service guys show up
'Your service looks fine'.  'Yes, because it is NOT RAINING today!')
I just swore at AT&T and got cable instead.  Canceled my land line
about 6 months ago as well.  The copper outside somewhere is crap, and
they had no interest in fixing it.  So they were not going to get
anymore of my money.
Now I have 20Mbps through Charter.  It's quite nice.
But that T1 to my house in 2001 was a lot of fun to brag about.


On Sat, Apr 3, 2010 at 11:15 PM, Todd Wallace <dragonbytes at cox.net> wrote:
> Hey all,
>
> My first experience with broadband internet was my first year of college (1996).  All the dorms were wired up and I had my very own Compudyne PC running windows 3.11.  My favorite part was not so much the speed, as it was the always on 24/7 connection to the internet.  I soon got involved with instant messaging along with the other students and we all used to leave away messages up before we went out or went to bed etc.  Those were the days.  During the holidays, I was stuck using dialup and those weeks were painful.  Finally, around when I graduated in 2000, Cox Communications was offering broadband to residential customers in my area.  Within 2 weeks of graduating, I had Cox High Speed Internet.  I've found Cox to be a very reliable and fast service.  Each few years they increase the bandwidth caps without requiring extra money.  The rare times it goes down, I used to be stuck for a few hours on dialup, however in this age of mobile broadband, now I just use my phone or dat
>  a card on my laptop.  Gotta love the progression of technology.  Just did a speedtest on the spot.
>
> http://www.speedtest.net/result/771071261.png
>
> I remember when 5mbps DOWNLOAD was really fast.  Now thats my upload.  I bet Verizon FIOS is even nicer, but I dont really see a need to switch at this point.  My current setup works just fine for me.  Just thought I'd jump in the conversation.  I'm also curious about what you guys get for bandwidth.  Cheers.
>
> - Todd Wallace
>
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