Submitted via IRC for Bytram
Most internet service providers are gone. Sonic has survived - and thrived
There was a teenager cursing on the internet. That wouldn’t be unusual, except it was 1993.
Dane Jasper and Scott Doty were students at Santa Rosa Junior College, and one of their jobs was setting up dial-up internet service at the college. In the early 1990s, internet access was becoming available on college campuses, but not everyone had it at home.
That’s when they got a call about Max posting profanity using his college account — and that’s what led them down the path of starting Sonoma Interconnect, now known as Sonic, the largest independent internet service provider in Northern California.
Jasper and Doty couldn’t find a student by that name when they looked him up. The student ID number on the account belonged to a 78-year-old woman named Mildred — someone who seemed unlikely to be spending her time using foul language online.
The pair eventually figured out the scheme. Students working in registration were stealing the student ID numbers of older adults signing up for noncomputer classes — the credentials needed to get online — and selling them to high schoolers eager to get on the internet.
“I said, ‘Scott, people are stealing this from us. We should set up a private service that provides access to the internet,’” Jasper said.
But where would they get the money to start Sonic? Doty had an answer: He opened up a drawer with paychecks from his campus job and remarked that payroll had been asking him to cash them.
The very notion of internet service providers and dial-up may seem like a legacy of the 1990s, which makes Sonic’s survival and growth all the more remarkable. The internet company marked its 25th anniversary Friday — a quarter-century after Jasper and Doty registered the domain Sonic.net.
What started in the back room of Jasper’s mother’s house has grown to 500 employees serving more than 100,000 customers in California.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ilPapa on Friday August 02 2019, @12:29AM (4 children)
Can you imagine there was actually a time when people got paychecks and didn't have to immediately cash them in order to survive day to day? I highly doubt this young couple of students would have been able to start Sonic if they'd had to pay off the crushing student loans people have to take today in order to get the same education that Dane Jasper and Scott Doty got for free (or next to nothing) in 1993.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02 2019, @01:51AM (2 children)
Yes, still today, when you are a student with a part time job while your parents have already paid for your tuition and send you a monthly allowance check.
My tuition and housing bill in 1993 was ~$15k in contemporary dollars at a state school. I guess I somehow didn't get the message on how my parents could get my education for free (or next to nothing).
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02 2019, @02:17AM
And you are blaming your parents' shortfalls on us?
If not, why are you spewing shit on us?
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by ilPapa on Friday August 02 2019, @03:22AM
And how much debt did you end up with when (if) you graduated.
Also, if I were you I'd ask for a refund. You clearly didn't get your money's worth.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheRaven on Friday August 02 2019, @09:21AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02 2019, @12:42AM
but when (year) did they get to connect to tier one directly :) ?
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday August 02 2019, @02:15AM
ISPs became notorious for clingy behavior. You couldn't quit them, baby. I don't know what it was about them, but seemed almost the whole damned industry was infected with this.
There's the infamous AOL account cancellation that just couldn't get done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmpDSBAh6RY [youtube.com] Comcast, another clinger, is a two time "winner" of the Worst Company in America contest.
I was with Prodigy for a while, when they had those atrocious terms that they could cut you off any time without notice, but you could not leave them unless you gave them written notice 30 days in advance. And, email didn't count as written notice, which always seemed an odd policy for an ISP or any other pioneer of Internet business. I noticed a suspicious tendency for my connection to drop every time I tried to complain to Prodigy. So I quit them, without notice, since they were making it difficult to give notice. Took them a year and a half of nasty letters, telling me my account was seriously delinquent, etc. before they finally gave up.
For a while, I joined a local ISP (Ethos), and they tried the same written notice crap. I had a year with them, and 6 months before the end, sent them an email informing them that I was leaving. They did not acknowledge. After my year ended, and I had informed them again that I was not renewing, they tried to soak me for one more month of service, charging my credit card without my authorization. When I called to protest, they gave me this malarkey that I "had to play by the rules", adopting an infuriating moralizing tone. Of course they claimed they had prior authorization. That one I disputed, and got my money back.
Flash was an exception. Was no fuss when I left them.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday August 02 2019, @06:34PM
Can they make me a sandwich?
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"