Board:   [fsxNet] Retro Computing
Subject: Re: old inet = your own DNS?
From:    Nightfox (21:1/137)
Date:    Sun Oct 25, 2026 13:30

  Re: Re: old inet = your own DNS?
  By: poindexter FORTRAN to Nightfox on Sun Oct 25 2026 09:56 am

 PF> Remember, this started at a time when Xfinity was trying to figure out a
 PF> way to charge by the client computer. They wanted to move you to a
 PF> business account or figure out a way to charge more if you had lots of
 PF> clients behind their firewall. You'd call in for support, one of the first
 PF> questions was how many client PCs you had.

 PF> That was when I got my first firewall - a WRT54G, and started playing with
 PF> third-party OSes. Set my modem into bridge mode and told them I had one
 PF> client - my firewall.

I remember ISPs wanting to do that. When we first got broadband internet in 2002, I bought a router to share internet, and I heard ISPs technically didn't like customers doing that because they wanted to charge per computer. The service tech who set up service at our house didn't mention anything about it though.

A friend of mine also had broadband internet, and he used a switch (rather than a router/firewall) to connect his computers, and he said the ISP started charging him per computer connected to their service.

Nightfox
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