In the UK in the early 90s we had to pay 1) The ISP a monthly charge 2) The ISP a per-minute charge (these were things like cix, compuserve, aol, etc) 3) the

In the UK in the early 90s we had to pay 1) The ISP a monthly charge 2) The ISP a per-minute charge (these were things like cix, compuserve, aol, etc) 3) the phone company a per-minute charge Later we had ISPs that didn't have a per-minute charge (Demon and the like), so it was just the monthly charge and the per minute charge to the phone company. Even later than that ISPs which were just a per-minute charge to the phone company came along. In the late 90s I think the phone company per minute charge was about 4p/minute in the day, so for anyone in the UK that would be about 9p per minute today, or if you ran your modem full pelt, about 36p per Megabyte. Towards the late 90s you could have a flat fee phone charge, then dsl and cable came along.