npcomplete said:
As seabass mentioned, domaining was not cheap by the time I started in 1996, and coughing up $50,000 was just the domain fees. As he mentioned you also needed to have dns service, etc. To keep expenses down I had a Frame Relay connection and a Class C network that allowed me to run my own dns servers and web servers. The phone company offered that level of service but I had to file a suit with the Public Utilities Commission to get the hookup that they offered.
ahhh, memories both good and bad.
npcomplete, that's interesting. There was all kinds of confusion back then.
The phone companies were unsure of how much pie to give everyone and they therefore bulked many times or mispriced their product. One of my old domainer friends moved to Arkansas because he found out that he could get service out there cheaper than any place in the USA.... he went out there and struck a deal bought a huge chunk from some phone company, and after the contracts were signed the phone company realized they gave him too much for his money. They realized they could have sold what he had for much, much more. They also realized what they had given him could threaten their own business health. The were very nervous about the big mistake they made.
But before he could cash in on their mistake, here is what happened:
He was working in a rented trailer in Arkansas until 5:00 A.M. every night being a "domainer", developer, and maintaining databases. The locals then thought he was making crystal meth or some other drugs b/c afterall, who the hell in Arkansas stays up until 5:00 A.M. every night.
The police then came and raided his trailer several times, stopped him in town many times and ran drug dogs through his car, the landlord would do surprise inspections of the residence with a pistol attached to his side. He then went to see a local lawyer about the abuse. The lawyer told him that the day before a local bank called the cops simply b/c a guy with a pony tail tried to make a bank deposit of about $100 in loose change. He decided to give up after hearing that.
So..... he had some of his relatives drive across country to Arkansas, and purposfully show up at 3:00 A.M. and load his personal stuff, computers, and all related business equipment in trucks and vans and they bolted in the middle of the night.
He lost his chance to make some money from the telephone company.
That business venture did not work out so well.
