I had compuserve, & AOL back in 94-95. I discovered that if I used a new 50 hr free AOL diskette and changed screen names, credit cards used or bank account numbers used, I could get free internet for a while. I did that for a year or two until AOL came out with a $19.95/mo flat rate unlimited. I always had access to local numbers, so long distance wasn't a problem. In 97, I started work with a cable company in St Paul. I was one of the two primary techs for the institutional network which provided a WAN/ Internet for the entire city offices, schools & state offices. In early 98, the company started beta testing cable internet to their subscribers and some of their line techs. I was one of them. Later that year, I started as an headend tech, working with customer data (internet) & we rolled out cable telephone in mid 1999. I still have an aol account, but it doesn't work real well with Windows 7- 64 bit quite yet. (It terminates and stays resident in memory and often taxes my computer. There must be some kind of huge memory hole in their software or something.)