At a previous job, we were trying to get always-on internet for a pre-IoT energy management product. This was when the fastest wireless you could get was Sprint

At a previous job, we were trying to get always-on internet for a pre-IoT energy management product. This was when the fastest wireless you could get was Sprint's 1xRTT and most of the nation was stuck at even slower speeds, if you could get internet at all. We would purchase "Unlimited" dialup internet, then nail the connection up. It was never going to scale. We charged our customers less than we were paying for the phone line, let alone the ISP service. If the ISPs discovered we were consuming their lines and not paying enough for them, we would have been thrown off. Still, it was enough to get the company to a sale. All they needed to do was hang on until the tech caught up with them. Today, you could build the same product in a weekend...