This is a little bit before, but a story worth telling (again).

In 1995, I got AOL. Of course, this was in the days where only dialup existed, and when AOL was not flat rate, but charged extra for any time spent online over 30 hours a month. I had some bills.

My 486 computer had a 14.4Kbps modem in it, which I decided I would upgrade to a 33.6Kbps. This was the fastest I could get at the time. Surely, I would enjoy this new superfast speed, right?

No, no I would not. I noticed that I was only ever connecting at 2400 - and this was when the "standard" for dialup was 14.4. AOL advertised 28.8 at the time, as I recall.

I tried all manner of modem strings to try and get my fancy 33.6 to connect to AOL at any speed higher than 2400, to no avail. I spent hours waiting in line in their "support" chat rooms (which I later learned were staffed by unpaid volunteers who may not have known anything about anything). Then I finally decided to try using the toll-free 800 number (which AOL charged a premium to use).

Bang, connected at 14.4Kbps. Back to my local number, 2400. ... Wait what? Okay, then it's not me, it's them.

I did even more digging to discover that AOL only offered "high speeds" in certain metropolitan areas. AOL numbers local to me were not included in any of those, so I got 2400bps, because that's all AOL would give. And by this time, the "standard" for dialup had jumped to 28.8Kbps.

All of those super high AOL bills from before (they'd since moved to flat rate unlimited) were exacerbated by "downloading art" at 2400bps.

I immediately went to the grocery store, bought a computer magazine, thumbed through it until I found a regular old ISP (Netcom), and called them on the phone to sign up.