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Before freeserv existed in the UK we didn't have a flat rate and a 800 number you could call into, you dialed a local number and paid by the minute, mum limited
by neom 3y ago
Before freeserv existed in the UK we didn't have a flat rate and a 800 number you could call into, you dialed a local number and paid by the minute, mum limited me to 2 hours a day and the she would take the RJ9 cable to enforce it.
One afternoon at lunch break at school I went down to the local elections store and used 2 days worth of lunch money to buy a secret RJ9.
After mum went to bed I'd sneak out my cable and dial up, spend all night online and hide it again in the morning.
Well... I ran up a 500 pound bill, I came home from school at the end of that month to a furious mum crying because we certainly couldn't afford it.
Mum called BT and explain what I'd done, and that it was unauthorized use, thank god BT nulled my contraband internet usage but it was a valuable lesson in doing as your parents say.
Really really really greatful freeserv popped up, although they eventually banned me for abusing "unlimited" (then I just got my uncle to create a new account for me).
- Ylpertnodi 3y agoBt let me off a huge bill, too. Those were the days...
- hnbear 3y agoI did the same in the UK, same time period. Running up frequent bills and trying to carefully manage being online enough without hitting an unspoken £ spend threshold. But, lots of ISPs made it very easy to get online with accounts paid through the dial-in number, so I didn’t need parent credit cards. Could just dial in and get access. Then we got a second line as soon as ISPs offered an 0800 freephone number to call and she realized that the tenner a month for the ISP and a tenner for a second line was far cheaper and easier and she’d get internet too.
- baz00 3y agoBeen there, done that. I was "temporarily" staying at my parents after a relationship had fallen through. £375 one month on dialup with Pipex. The insult was followed no less than 3 days later with a similarly large electricity bill for the skip dived fully stacked Sun 1000E and disk array I was running 24/7 as a workstation. Stupid machine - had to sleep with ear plugs in.
- pluijzer 3y agoI feel you. Already quite some years into the age of DSL I was hospitalized. I needed to stay there for a couple of weeks and had my parents bring my laptop. There was no WiFi or anything. Then I that my laptop had a dial-up socket and also say the telephone on my night table. I introduced the two and managed to get online for the rest of my stay. I used it sparsely because I knew it would cost money. When fired from the hospital my mother was very happy I survived everything but she looked also very angry. I was very confused. Only found out later that the phone line was really at a premium and racked up, converted, a 2000 euro bill.
- mjfisher 3y ago> When fired from the hospital For anyone else that stumbled over that for a second - "fired" is of course synonymous with "discharged". English is a weird language!
- pluijzer 3y agoI translated this literally from Dutch. I searched for it and I think it is just incorrect. Maybe English is not that weird anyway.
- toast0 3y agoYou could be discharged from a job which is formalism for being fired, so I can see how a literal translation could lead you there.
- batshibstein 3y agoMore direct correlation of discharge in the sense of a weapon or firearm. "Discharged a gun", "Fired a gun"