[not2b]

Back in the 1980s, long distance couples sometimes wound up paying more in long distance phone calls than rent, and 30 miles away counted as long distance. No one could attach anything to the precious network, so acoustic coupler modems had to be used, resulting in very low bandwidth. Yes, a lot of good stuff came out of Bell Labs, funded by the huge amount of monopoly money that came into the company, but that needed to end.

[SoftTalker]

I was in that situation. I was thrilled when Sprint long distance became available at $0.10/minute and I also remember when you could stop renting your home phone from AT&T and plug in one that you bought and owned.

[wormius]

Heh - My first online experience was 1995 (obviously, pre-98 telecom deregulation). Not only did the price include the insane per-hour pricing of Compuserve, but the long distance fees pushed my bill up to 300 dollars the first month. I worked at Taco Bell at the time and made like 4 bucks an hour. Thankfully I lived at home rent free at that point.