When did non-dial up internet come to Dublin?

DylanII

I was talking to friends and they all remember having dial up internet (having to get off the computer if someone wanted to use the phone) and I dont remember it at all.

I remember having a computer before all of my friends but I dont remember dial up. So when did real internet come to Dublin? I was born in 1994, but Im not sure when I got a computer (that I was allowed to use)

yoyo

Dad was one of the first Eircom broadband customers, I think it was around 2003/4 (home business so justified the cost :eek: ) . I remember it came with one of these funky Sting Ray Alcatel Speed touch USB modems:


Of couse ISDN came before DSL, not entirely sure when that came in, but it was a good bit earlier!

Nick

Chet T16

I remember when we got ISDN in and if i was downloading something big* i'd fire up both lines and leave it on overnight. Can anyone remember the cost per min back then?

*>100MB

Torqay

Chet T16 wrote: »

Can anyone remember the cost per min back then?

6 PM to 8 AM was around 60c per hour, during the day around €3, IIRC. Local call charges applied, double that with both lines.

fionny

Lest ye forget

Dotsie~tmp

I remember 400 pound phone bills. I think DSL came 2004 or so. Used to hate ISDN guys on the irish CS and TFC severs with their 90 pings. Very much the bad old days.

Arrow in the Knee

When did non-dial up internet come to Dublin?

I still have Dial-up!!!

tricky D

We used ISDN around 96 for some off site installs, can't remember the cost.

We also got a leased line for th office around the same year. It was either 64k or 128k and costs around 14k inpunts per annum.

coylemj

Let's also remind ourselves that local calls used to be charged one unit (about 9p) regardless of duration and there was a huge outcry when the minister (might have been Mary O'Rourke) announced that they were going to be billed based on duration.

The problem that Telecom Eireann (as Eircom was then called) had was that leased line customers typically had dialup fallback so if the leased line connecting head office to a branch office crashed, the modem would dial-up the other modem via a regular exchange switched line and the data traffic would resume though typically at a reduced rate based on the quality of the line being used.

The customer (eg AIB, Hibernian, EBS etc.) would then ask Telcom Eireann to fix the line but sometimes that took a while and meantime the dialup connection would keep the branch office running for potentially several weeks and if the branch was in the (01) area, it was all for the cost of a local call.

Say it took two weeks to fix the leased line, the bank could then ask for a refund of two weeks rental on the (broken) leased line and the bill for the dialup connection would be pennies, that's why they had to start charging for local calls based on duration.

unkel

I got broadband in '01. That was dial up and satellite down

Had ISDN before that. The bills! (Anyone remember UTV with the free dial up / ISDN for 48 hours every weekend? )

Got NTL cable broadband in July '03. Not one of the very first areas in Dublin (I think some parts of D16 (Firhouse / Knocklyon?) were first in '02?) but mine wasn't much after...

Even 5 or 6 years ago, broadband in Ireland was worse than several countries in Africa :rolleyes:

fionny

My parents first ISP was Indigo we used to get 28.8K connection speed, then oceanfree came along a few years later (and achieved a connection of 36.6k) and the day of the dialup subscriber ISP was screwed. Indigo tried to become some kind of auction site but eventually fizzled out or became something else.

yoyo

fionny wrote: »

My parents first ISP was Indigo we used to get 28.8K connection speed, then oceanfree came along a few years later (and achieved a connection of 36.6k) and the day of the dialup subscriber ISP was screwed. Indigo tried to become some kind of auction site but eventually fizzled out or became something else.

Dads email used to be @gofree.indigo.ie, talk about convoluted. Of course Indigo wanted you paying the few euro for the @indigo address :P

Nick

fionny

Ya it took indigo nearly 1 year to offer the gofree service.

unkel

fionny wrote: »

then oceanfree came along a few years later

My oldest personal email address that I still use is my oceanfree one from '96

To put things into perspective - I guess only about 1% of people in this country would have seen the web at that stage. Goes to show how far we have moved and how quickly at that.

ED E

yoyo wrote: »

Dad was one of the first Eircom broadband customers, I think it was around 2003/4 (home business so justified the cost :eek: ) . I remember it came with one of these funky Sting Ray Alcatel Speed touch USB modems:


Of couse ISDN came before DSL, not entirely sure when that came in, but it was a good bit earlier!

Nick

Were you in the trial? We were in the first 100(again, small home office) in the country to try broadband, got it free for three months as long as the aul fella went to two focus group meetings.

OP: You're just a youngin, few years older and you'd remember it.

yoyo

ED E wrote: »

Were you in the trial? We were in the first 100(again, small home office) in the country to try broadband, got it free for three months as long as the aul fella went to two focus group meetings.

OP: You're just a youngin, few years older and you'd remember it.

Honestly havn't a clue! But it is quite possible. There was just 2 people in my school who had broadband at the time, so it's quite possible yes . I don't remember Dad going to focus group meetings, however, was quite young at the time and don't remember!

Nick

ED E

The aul fella is still paying for an @indigo account actually, paying for email....:pac:

yoyo

ED E wrote: »

The aul fella is still paying for an @indigo account actually, paying for email....:pac:

Clever how all these companies are still charging though :pac: , plus the effort for someone to change email address can be huge. My dad changed from gofree Indigo to @ie.gateway.net iirc it was. Basicly Gateway computers gave a free email address to people who purchased their computers.
Of course with Gateway leaving they basicly sent an email to everyone that your email address would be decommissioned in 2 weeks time so make other arrangements :pac: . He then went to Eircom and now he has his own domain and hosted mail, the way it should be for business use

Nick

Chet T16

yoyo wrote: »

now he has his own domain and hosted mail, the way it should be for business use

I hate to see vans or anything with www.mybusinessname.com and then mybusinessname@hotmail.com on it!

ED E

yoyo wrote: »

Clever how all these companies are still charging though :pac: , plus the effort for someone to change email address can be huge. My dad changed from gofree Indigo to @ie.gateway.net iirc it was. Basicly Gateway computers gave a free email address to people who purchased their computers.
Of course with Gateway leaving they basicly sent an email to everyone that your email address would be decommissioned in 2 weeks time so make other arrangements :pac: . He then went to Eircom and now he has his own domain and hosted mail, the way it should be for business use

Nick

You dont have to tell me. I got my first mobile at 12 YO, with o2 and got firstnamesurname@o2.ie, which is nice because both my names are really really common. As it was my first address and free, and they had POP unlike hotmail, I used it as my primary. And then a few months ago, because their devs are incompetent and couldnt fix a few bugs, they shut it down. Had 2 months notice, but still a massive pain. Had to filter my archives with "thank you for registering" and "welcome to" etc to remind me of all the accounts I had so I could make a list to move. Some, like World of tanks for example, are very hard to change too(their team never got back to me, so **** if I'm buying anything in that game).

Chet T16 wrote: »

I hate to see vans or anything with www.mybusinessname.com and then mybusinessname@hotmail.com on it!

Yeah, @yahoo is even worse, but @gmail is ok really, as its not a spammers heaven and is the one to use. The aul fella is ****@indigo.ie so it looks professional enough. I've been telling him to move for a year or so, but its such a messy process he hasnt started.

mach1982

my late Father worked for eircom , then the Telecom Eirinn(tinnet.ie), we got internet back in 1995, ISND a year or two later the brodband around 2002/3.

JazzyJ

When I lived in San Francisco back in 00/01, I had free 1MB broadband with NetZero. Moved back to Ireland at the end of 2001 and it was some shock to the system - eircom's flogging ISDN as their "high-speed" solution. :mad:

In 2002, in work we'd ISDN and from what I can recall one line was used for voice during the days, and post 5pm you'ld get all the awesome power of both lines. :pac: Much celebration (and probably significantly increased productivity) when broadband was installed near the end of that year.

mrbrown69

My first experience with dial up and the internet was with eircom around 2000, even then I knew I was being ripped off.....switched to Iol anytime which was 30 quid a month for always on internet....pretty good deal for the time

Richard Dower

See my Boards join date?....July 2003, tis when BB rolled out....i jumped on BB the moment it was announced!, 512kb down/128kb up......took Eircom years to give us even 1mb down!

I had that Zyzel USB modem....great little thing, USB plug and play.....

Ste-

Richard Dower wrote: »

See my Boards join date?....July 2003, tis when BB rolled out....i jumped on BB the moment it was announced!, 512kb down/128kb up......took Eircom years to give us even 1mb down!

I had that Zyzel USB modem....great little thing, USB plug and play.....

I remember that modem, took hell to get it running in linux at the time.

Still have it at home mind. Handy if the wireless router goes belly up as it did last week and I needed a quick fix!

Ihackedboardz

Used to use BBS on the Amiga back in the early 90's, I was a member of CUGI (Commadore Users Group of Ireland).
Started dial up tinternet about 94/95, I think the isp was club internet or something like that, 15 quid a month, moved to various Isp's over the years including oceanfree & then to IOL free were you pay 20-20 quid for unlimited dial up.
My First Broadband was from a crowd called Leap who use LoS tech which they supposedly bought from the Israeli military??
512k up/down for a bargain price of 120 euro a month!! thankfully I was living in a house full of geeks so it was split 4 ways.
Went DSL with Eircom in 2004 & then finally in '05 I discovered true geek love with UPC & their gooey sexy cable tinternet.
UPC where trialing cable internet as far back as the late 90's (98/99) in D15/16...

JJJJNR

worked for AOL tech support in 96 and troubleshooting modems for customers in the UK was one of the main things I had to do, editing connection settings &C0 for turning compression on, &C1 for turning it off etc, I used to have nightmares about pace and other various modems..2 hr custom connection string calls with home users.. .oh yeah and comm ports being open, hypertrm etc, :eek: evil evil things !

its so simple now.

Gyck

nightmares about pace and other various modems

I had a Pace modem around the end of the 90's early 2000's, very nice modem indeed. Played alot of Q2 on dialup
Anyone remember those nasty ass Winmodems?
Migrated to boroadband in '03 or '04 using the Eircom Zyzel - wow, what a difference to dialup. Now I've got a 25Meg, or 28Meg, or 50Meg UPC connection. I haven't checked the speed in a while. Scary.

Solair

Eircom launched DSL quite late (no surprise there) - it was around 2001/2002 with a 512k/128k product for about €90/month!

ISDN has been around for a lot longer. It was certainly around as standardised EuroISDN since the early 90s.

There were non-standardised ISDN products around before that though for various data line setups. They cost an arm and a leg though.

ISDN wasn't anything amazing though. The telephone network (since it went digital in the late 70s / into the 80s) used 64kbit/s circuit switched channels for processing voice traffic. So, basically when you speak down an analogue line, your voice is converted by a "line card" which is a bit like a VoIP ATA i.e. converts your voice into digital signals using a fairly simple and pretty ancient codec called aLog in European countries (uLog in the USA/etc). The exchange then processes everything as digital information, but not using packets like the internet. Everything is (was) processed as streams of simple PCM data and it used circuit switching, not packet switching. These days, a lot of networks have aspects of that switched over to VoIP.

All ISDN did was take out the analogue bit between your house and the exchange, and connect you directly to the exchange's 64kbit/s channels. So, you could send voice or data down the same network. For faster speeds, you're just bonding multiple 64kbit/s channels together. As far as the exchange is concerned they're all extra phone calls.

As a technology, it was 'interesting' but, pointless. It never really could do anything all that much faster than a 56kbit/s modem unless you'd really expensive connections with loads of channels. Single or dual channel ISDN was a bit faster than a fast modem, but not exactly ground-breaking. So, for domestic / small business users it was a bit pointless and expensive.

Some Northern European countries went big into rollout of ISDN phones. Again, I never understood the point of them. They didn't do anything that a normal phone didn't do! From an end users' perspective, it was still a phone.

Cable modems were also around on a very limited scale in Ireland in the '00s. NTL never seemed to get the widespread rollout they promised and Chorus seems to have started a rollout then just gave up. There were a few areas in Cork that had cable broadband quite early on. Speeds and quality of service were nothing remotely like UPC's current stuff though.