What Was The Very First Internet Dial-Up Speed Like?

[Jonathan1990]

I heard it was only at 28kb in 1998 which is 0.028mb which is nothing compared to the broadband that you get today that is up to 100mb. Who used to have dial-up internet at 28kb? I had dial-up at 30kb-34kb up to 2009 when I got the first broadband at 2mb which was much better.

 

[PohTayToez]

I started out on a 14.4k, I'm sure some of the older members have used even slower connections.

There was nothing wrong with it at the time, it was just the standard. Also websites weren't as complex, images weren't as big, etc, so it didn't take as long to load pages as it would on the same connection today. I do remember when Napster came out though, it took a good 30 minutes to an hour to download a single MP3.

 

[claptonman]

I don't remember the specific speed, but it was hooked up to the phone, couldn't use the phone while on the internet, and I still remember all the beeps and everything it made.

 

[MyCattMaxx]

My first modem was a 300 baud Vic.

 

[strollin]

I first went online with a 1200 baud modem in 1984, I wasn't logging on to the internet then only Bulletin Board Systems or BBSs as they were referred to. My sister had a 300 baud modem hooked to her computer and it was damn slow but it worked, just had to be patient.

I'm not sure when I first got on the 'net or what speed modem I was running at the time but there was no www then. My internet connection consisted of an account on a Unix host somewhere that I could login to via a terminal program on my PC. No graphics, everything was text based so the slow, dial-up connection worked OK. Had to use ftp to get files from remote computers then download to PC.

 

[voyagerfan99]

It was slow. That's all I remember.

 

[cabinfever1977]

very slow and made alot of noise when dialing on,but windows was smaller and faster and took up less room.

 

[Hyper-Threaded]

My grandma still has dial up because she cant get high speed where she is, this weekend I gotta bring her computer to my house and put sp3 and all updates on it so hopefully she dosent wait 30min to load her email anymore lol.

 

[Geoff]

Slowest dial-up we had was around 48K (it was also the fastest). At the time I didn't think anything of it, we only used the internet to e-mail and do research. We NEVER went on the internet as part of our daily life growing up, considering at the time I was only allowed to use the phone for internet between 8-9PM a night.

Most websites were basic text however, you didn't have the fancy images, music, videos, flash, etc. that you have today. This is your classic early 1990's websites:

 

[massahwahl]

Go Google space jam movie website it was like that and it was super awesome at the time. My fiancees parents had dial up till about a year ago and working at their house was painful!

 

[strollin]

Since the original internet was text based, dialup was plenty fast enough. It wasn't until the after the www came into being and everything went graphical that things really slowed down and a fast connection was required.

 

[mcgrizzein]

I remember my dads 9800 baud and there were a few before that I can remember but not the tech specs. It wasnt the same internet then, it was mainly referred to as BBS (Bulletin Board System). I remember logging on for gaming cheats and faqs. There were no ads, no flashy pictures, just 16-bit text and color goodness. The speeds were enough to send and receive these simple "pages" that probably werent even a kilobyte in size. So 9800 baud wasnt slow like it would be today. Anyone remember Prodigy Net?

 

[johnb35]

Anyone remember Prodigy Net?

That was my first internet provider. Chat rooms weren't bad.

 

[TankerHC]

It was 100 baud, followed by 300 baud followed by 960 or so, followed by 1200 and so on. But back in those days you weren't accessing the Net and there was no Web. More than likely you were accessing a BB. In the early 80's up to around 94 I hosted a 12 node BB using Mustang Software. Those speeds were plenty fast enough with the exception of when the users (My customers, around 400, paid 5 bucks a month), started wanting "Pics" then to download one Gif would take like 30 minutes to an hour.

 

[strollin]

Anyone remember Prodigy Net?

Prodigy was a joint venture between IBM and Sears. I worked for IBM at the time and employees were offered free access to Prodigy during it's first year or so.

It was one of the first, if not the first, on-line services to use a graphical interface. Because of that, it was very slow compared to the text-based BBS systems. The text-based systems could also provide more content per page. It's advantage was that it was a nation-wide system whereas most BBSes were local in scope. The graphical interface was also less intimidating to those unfamiliar with being on-line since the BBS systems mostly used a command line to navigate around.

 

[tremmor]

And don't forget bulletin boards before the internet.

 

[Motorcharge]

14.4k is the slowest I ever had back in the early 90s.

 

[TankerHC]

Prodigy was a joint venture between IBM and Sears. I worked for IBM at the time and employees were offered free access to Prodigy during it's first year or so.

It was one of the first, if not the first, on-line services to use a graphical interface. Because of that, it was very slow compared to the text-based BBS systems. The text-based systems could also provide more content per page. It's advantage was that it was a nation-wide system whereas most BBSes were local in scope. The graphical interface was also less intimidating to those unfamiliar with being on-line since the BBS systems mostly used a command line to navigate around.

I signed on to Prodigy as soon as it came out. It was expensive as they charged by the minute, plus in my location you had to pay for a Data Line.

I wonder how many people remember WOW! from Compuserve. I think they launched sometime in 94 to compete with AOL for the consumer market. I was on AOL at the time, AOL was charging per minute rates back then as well and WOW! was the first service to allow unlimited access for $20 a month. They had a decent and easy to navigate GUI as well as all of the same options that AOL had.

 

[novicegeek]

All I remember is that dialing took a little while (I'm talking a minute or a little more) and the speed on downloading things, compared to today, was excruciating. Basically, you'd click download and find something else to do for a while.

 

[byteninja2]

Slowest dial-up we had was around 48K (it was also the fastest). At the time I didn't think anything of it, we only used the internet to e-mail and do research. We NEVER went on the internet as part of our daily life growing up, considering at the time I was only allowed to use the phone for internet between 8-9PM a night.

Most websites were basic text however, you didn't have the fancy images, music, videos, flash, etc. that you have today. This is your classic early 1990's websites

That's late 90s.