There were and are links owned and operated by universities and colleges. As in, the sysop at foo.edu called up the sysop at bar.edu (a mile down the road) and

There were and are links owned and operated by universities and colleges. As in, the sysop at foo.edu called up the sysop at bar.edu (a mile down the road) and said: hey bill, 50% of all our napster traffic from the dorms is going to bar.edu, and it is going through my-isp.net and your-isp.net to get there. Why don't you mount a transceiver on a pole and I'll do the same and we'll establish this alternative route for those packets? It is unfortunate that it was also common to rent "alarm wire"[0] copper from the phone company for a point to point link over DSL... I don't think that product is available anymore, because VoIP vs POTS. 0: "Alarm wire" is the term I learned to use to describe an electrically connected circuit from point A to point B in a town, where neither A nor B is the telco. The copper might physically go through the telco's building, but there was no POTS on it and if you apply voltage on the point A end, it can be observed on the point B end... I think maybe the term "dumb circuit" could apply, too. Anyway, these were cool because you could upgrade the DSL modem on both ends to get a faster connection without paying more per month!