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That 128Kbps on ISDN was the like the gold standard back then! I knew some sysadmins who had that installed to their homes so they could be available at any tim

That 128Kbps on ISDN was the like the gold standard back then! I knew some sysadmins who had that installed to their homes so they could be available at any time. All paid for by the company they worked for.

wkat4242 2y ago
Yes but with channel bundling you also had to pay twice. One channel was only 64k.
js2 2y ago
I was one of those SAs, circa 1998-2000. We also had an on-call kit with a Nokia Communicator so we weren't completely stuck at home while on-call. Fast-forward to 2025, and I now have dual 1Gbps symmetric fiber connections (AT&T, GFiber) into my home from opposite sides of the house. (It's totally gratuitous and I'll probably cancel GFiber in a few months, but I wanted to have it wired up so I could more quickly start service in the future.)
fatnoah 2y ago
> All paid for by the company they worked for. One of my internships in college was at Sun Microsystems in the org that provided this connectivity to employees. My job was to automate pushing updates to connection software and modem firmware down to clients, but I ended up doing a lot of technical support as well.
hylaride 2y ago
Ha! My mom worked as a build engineer at BNR (later Nortel) in the 1990s and we got a free 2nd phone line for her to dial into work (99% used by me and my brother for internet). She could have gotten ISDN had it been available in our small town, but alas...
shagie 2y ago
There was also that period of time when Ricochet was available in some places. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricochet_(Internet_service) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricochet_(Internet_service) Wireless 56k baud. So you could take your luggable laptop circa 1994 with you and dial in to work... given you lived in SF.
- royskee 2y ago
  Oh man I forgot about Ricochet. I remember they had service in NYC too, and it turns out also in a few other big markets. https://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/16/technology/ricochet-network-lived-fast-and-died-young.html https://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/16/technology/ricochet-netwo...
phil21 2y ago
The most bang for buck "employee benefit" I ever offered to my guys back in the earl 00's was a T1 line to their home for free. We could do this since local loops to most folks were about $150-200/mo, and we already had a channelized DS3 terminated at our rack at a local datacenter for our phone banks. If you bought your own DS1 retail you'd be paying upwards of $1k/mo back then to a provider. It was by far the best "stickiness for dollar" investment into employee benefits I've ever found back then or since.
- icedchai 2y ago
  I worked at an ISP that gave dedicated ISDN and 56k frame relay lines as a benefit in the late 90's. T1 would've been amazing!
- linsomniac 2y ago
  I worked for an ISP back in around '98, and they offered to let me terminate a T1 there if I covered the line. I got a contract from the phone company for $205/mo for the T1 and got it all set up, but they were billing me $250/mo for the line. A couple months in DSL dropped, and I got out of the T1 contract because they said they couldn't honor the contract they wrote because $250/mo was the regulated minimum price, and I got 768K DSL for $70/mo. At the time everyone was speculating that DSL wouldn't work (crosstalk across pairs as multiple people in a bundle use DSL will cause it to fail), but they were quickly proven wrong.
- wil421 2y ago
  Back in the day people on forums would list T1 line in their signature. My ISDN line was not worthy!
- badc0ffee 2y ago
  I had 1.5 Mbps DSL in 1999, and I think nearly all of my co-workers either had that or a cable modem with similar speed. I think T1s were like 5x the price for the same download speed.
  - genewitch 2y ago
calamity_elf 2y ago
I used to use 128Kbps bonded ISDN at home through BT Home Highway and an ISP called Red Hot Ant who had fixed price unmetered internet access. And I accessed the heck out of that connection (until the ISP went bust, wonder why?), and was very much a Q3A LPB during that time.
joquarky 2y ago
I had one for work as well in the late 90s. The other (often overlooked) benefit that ISDN provided was 24/7 connectivity in an age of dialup. Oh and you could spoof your outgoing phone number for caller ID ]:D

wkat4242 2y ago

Yes but with channel bundling you also had to pay twice. One channel was only 64k.

js2 2y ago

I was one of those SAs, circa 1998-2000. We also had an on-call kit with a Nokia Communicator so we weren't completely stuck at home while on-call. Fast-forward to 2025, and I now have dual 1Gbps symmetric fiber connections (AT&T, GFiber) into my home from opposite sides of the house. (It's totally gratuitous and I'll probably cancel GFiber in a few months, but I wanted to have it wired up so I could more quickly start service in the future.)

fatnoah 2y ago

> All paid for by the company they worked for. One of my internships in college was at Sun Microsystems in the org that provided this connectivity to employees. My job was to automate pushing updates to connection software and modem firmware down to clients, but I ended up doing a lot of technical support as well.

hylaride 2y ago

Ha! My mom worked as a build engineer at BNR (later Nortel) in the 1990s and we got a free 2nd phone line for her to dial into work (99% used by me and my brother for internet). She could have gotten ISDN had it been available in our small town, but alas...

shagie 2y ago

There was also that period of time when Ricochet was available in some places. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricochet_(Internet_service) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricochet_(Internet_service) Wireless 56k baud. So you could take your luggable laptop circa 1994 with you and dial in to work... given you lived in SF.

royskee 2y ago
Oh man I forgot about Ricochet. I remember they had service in NYC too, and it turns out also in a few other big markets. https://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/16/technology/ricochet-network-lived-fast-and-died-young.html https://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/16/technology/ricochet-netwo...

phil21 2y ago

The most bang for buck "employee benefit" I ever offered to my guys back in the earl 00's was a T1 line to their home for free. We could do this since local loops to most folks were about $150-200/mo, and we already had a channelized DS3 terminated at our rack at a local datacenter for our phone banks. If you bought your own DS1 retail you'd be paying upwards of $1k/mo back then to a provider. It was by far the best "stickiness for dollar" investment into employee benefits I've ever found back then or since.

icedchai 2y ago
I worked at an ISP that gave dedicated ISDN and 56k frame relay lines as a benefit in the late 90's. T1 would've been amazing!
linsomniac 2y ago
I worked for an ISP back in around '98, and they offered to let me terminate a T1 there if I covered the line. I got a contract from the phone company for $205/mo for the T1 and got it all set up, but they were billing me $250/mo for the line. A couple months in DSL dropped, and I got out of the T1 contract because they said they couldn't honor the contract they wrote because $250/mo was the regulated minimum price, and I got 768K DSL for $70/mo. At the time everyone was speculating that DSL wouldn't work (crosstalk across pairs as multiple people in a bundle use DSL will cause it to fail), but they were quickly proven wrong.
wil421 2y ago
Back in the day people on forums would list T1 line in their signature. My ISDN line was not worthy!
badc0ffee 2y ago
I had 1.5 Mbps DSL in 1999, and I think nearly all of my co-workers either had that or a cable modem with similar speed. I think T1s were like 5x the price for the same download speed.
- genewitch 2y ago

calamity_elf 2y ago

I used to use 128Kbps bonded ISDN at home through BT Home Highway and an ISP called Red Hot Ant who had fixed price unmetered internet access. And I accessed the heck out of that connection (until the ISP went bust, wonder why?), and was very much a Q3A LPB during that time.

joquarky 2y ago

I had one for work as well in the late 90s. The other (often overlooked) benefit that ISDN provided was 24/7 connectivity in an age of dialup. Oh and you could spoof your outgoing phone number for caller ID ]:D