[eterm]

Oh, that $40 is the service cost. Even in '97 I remember paying £20/mo for the ISP, phone bills were then on top of that £20.

Then "freeserve" came out[1] and (gasp!) was free apart from the phone call. This was a major shift. There were downsides (only 1 pop3 email account, no newsgroups, no webspace), but it was free!

[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/177467.stm

[crusso]

Almost all residential POTS lines in the US were flat-rate, so there were no charges here to make a local phone call. Granted, if you had to dial long-distance to connect to the ISP, then you paid toll rates for that.

[eterm]

Oh, thanks for the correction and local knowledge.