[ewoodrich]

When I was a kid I used to pack my house's cable modem in a backback and bring it to my friend's house a couple miles away when I'd visit to play Xbox Live. My dad had a back-up dial-up connection for emails and mom didn't use the internet very much so usually wouldn't mind unless he needed to work. I remember this working at greater distances in other places occasionally too.

Earlier, in the dial-up era, my dad didn't feel like paying for internet at home and work, so after school I would call his office and ask his secretary if he had left for his evening meetings yet. If so, she'd disconnect his dial-up connection and I'd get a couple hours to myself after school.

We didn't have two phone lines at home so I'm not sure what happened if he needed it unexpectedly. I think he also had a by-the-minute service as a backup or maybe his partner in the office had a separate plan? This was all done under agreed rules I only vaguely remember so must not have been a frequent problem.

Always funny to think back to that era when internet wasn't assumed to be a 24/7 thing and losing internet for a day wasn't the end of the world...