Who was your first ISP?

[Andre]

Initialy it used to be BBS for me which were direct dial ups (one or two I used even had 3 modems so could support simultaneous users). Fondly remember a lOndon based BBS called "Gnome at home" Used Prestel type graphics and connected at 1200/75

For the internet "proper" it was compuserve for me follwed by CIX, Demon, RedHotAnt, ClaraNet and then BTinternet broadband, Nildram etc..

Think my first modem was either 2400 or 4800 baud max...

Snap, but mine was a 300 baud Modem (30 characters persecond max!)
Then internet was Compuserve, AOL - both dial-up on a 14.4Kb Modem
Then Cable & Wireless, later to become NTL then VirginMedia going from 256Kb to 200Mb

 

[ED209]

I used aol to start then moved to Cable Tel.

Will never forget the dial up tone when the modem used to connect for the Internet lol

 

[happy_2008]

Think it was either freeserve or AOL but the best one back then was WH-Smith. It was unlimited usage but the downside was that you would get disconnected every 2 hours

 

[pepp77]

Freeserve at the end of the 90s sounds about right for me.

 

[Glanza]

Freeserve back in dial up days

 

[Rainmaker]

In the dim and distant past I went through a cycle of offers from ISPs-on-CD, as did most. AOL, Freeserve, and eventually I found that Trinity Mirror had a freephone dial-up service for readers that ostensibly offered free (highly congested) 0800 connections between 6pm and midnight, or something to that effect. A year or two later, long after they'd stopped publicising the offer, I discovered that the number still worked and didn't kick you off, and ended up connected to it for about 2 years practically continuously before it stopped working.

My first 'real' ISP was ADSL24, run by a forum member and later sold to James at DSLZoneUK.net. Great ISP at the time. I later moved on to UK Online (for the faster speeds on ADSL2+, static IP etc) and then over to VM for the unbeatable download speeds. I've been looking at leased lines this week, as I'd rather have uncontended 100/100 with an SLA than 1000/50. Manchester is better connected for this sort of stuff than Liverpool, but it is available to me (FTTP) and I'm considering it with free install on a 3-5 year contract.

 

[Sp00n]

BT unlimited with the 2 hour redial, 20m telephone cable across the landing from parents bedroom, the things we had to do

 

[mikehhhhhhh]

I hopped between loads of different dial-up providers in the early days. I used to have a cap of 2-4 hours an evening while it was 1p a minute.

Then along came some 0800 providers, I shared one with a mate for a while as there was no limit on concurrent dial-ins before eventually ending up on freeserve IIRC.

Once ADSL landed circa 2003, I was straight on a 512kbps package from Zen.

I'm back on Zen now with a 900/100 service.

 

[cheesyboy]

Damn, 15 year thread necro!

At my parent's house, we started with Madasafish in around '98, later moving to Freeserve. When I went to uni in 2000, in halls NTL was the only option iirc, so that's what I had.

I don't remember when we got broadband at my parents, and can't remember what isp I had when I bought a house in 2006, can't even remember if it was broadband or dialup. I guess it must have been broadband.

 

[Eurofighter]

BT for dialup I think. Might have had a brief go on an AOL CD. Then Pipex for DSL, then Zen and now Vodafone.

 

[BowdonUK]

I see there is a couple of former CIX customers here. When the 'web' was just a screen full of text.

My ISP life is CIX, Demon, Freeserve, Pipex, Be, then BT.

 

[Jamauk]

IC24, 56K, connected at 54K. It was free but would only stay connected for 1 hour, or until someone wanted to use the phone - incredibly frustrating when a parent missed a call from someone, or wanted to call someone.

After that it was NTL 512K, that seemed damn quick, moving house I went to Sky ADSL2 connected at 3Mb/Sec, when the speed dropped to 1Mb/Sec, despite several calls to Sky they refused to either send a new router or allow any investigation on the line I changed to BT ADSL2+, sync'd at 75Mb/Sec, now on EE at the same speed

 

[john_s]

Demon Internet, dial up with their turnpike software!!

Same here… tenner a month!

 

[V F]

Interesting necro thread as it highlights how slow a lot of the UK fixed line internet progress has been due to the reliance on the copper infrastructure.

I started with compuserve in 1997 @ 33Kbps. In 2002 I think I went to BT 512Kbps ADSL. By 2006 at the time of the start of this thread I was on ADSL at 2Mbps. Four years after that and it was VDSL 40/10 from recollection and now 15 years after the start of the thread it’s still only VDSL albeit 80/20 available to me.

Wish I had VDSL in 2010. That must have felt amazing with 40/10 in 2010. You must be in a big city? As I'm seeing these dates awfully familiar.

I remember all the horrible performance stories of ADSL 2Mb in 2002/4 in the main cities.

 

[ODuffer]

Yeah Demon, Trumpet Windsock or whatever it was

 

[BigT]

Wish I had VDSL in 2010. That must have felt amazing with 40/10 in 2010. You must be in a big city? As I'm seeing these dates awfully familiar.

I remember all the horrible performance stories of ADSL 2Mb in 2002/4 in the main cities.

Yup, right in the middle of London with the cabinet outside my front door. It was great and when 80/20 was available I was the first onto that too. Then I moved to the countryside and got the shock of my life. Miles from the exchange and maybe 1.5km from the cabinet. For a few week it was 120kbps on ADSL until I found a provider who would offer me FTTC which gave me a paltry 4/1 and augmented it with a 4G connection (when unlimited data wasn’t a thing) with about 25Mbps and a monthly 50Gb limit. Joined the local parish council and spent years influencing things with the support of other villagers to get a new cabinet on our cricket green and back to where I was speed wise when I left London.

 

[fobose]

I think freeserve for me too, I was about 15. A few years later I remember getting nildram ADSL 512k in 2001. My god that was one hell of an upgrade!

 

[Cyber-Mav]

I believe it was NTL dial up with 1p per minute charge.

 

[Danthus]

Pipex.

 

[ov_sjo]

U-NET. Not UU-NET.

Used to plug into the JANET backbone IIRC. My static hostname was kewl.u-net.co.uk I seem to recollect!

Demon was next, with slackware.demon.co.uk

Been with A&A since 2000 now.