14 Jan
2005
14 Jan
'05
2:07 p.m.
On Fri, 14 Jan 2005, Al Kossow wrote:
"The Little Garden" was one of the earliest
ISPs on the mid-peninsula. There
were a few others, like meernet, who are still around.
meernet was a customer of TLG! the little garden -- and other
toasternets (as they were called) at the time -- stirred a lot of
shit in the internet.
Our policy was essentially "you own your own words" and we allowed
resale at any and all level of service. Period. No questions
asked. Try that today! It wasn't allowed then either -- which is
why we were kicked off alternet. The existing soon-to-be-ISPs
(alternet, psi, etc) all wanted the whole pie for themselves.
We sold do-it-yourself T1 to the internet for $800/month, and told
you how to order your own circuits, how to buy your own router and
CSU, how to config etc.
MCI didn't sell T1's within a few hundred miles of us -- really.
We sold T1 internet to Nevada; the cost of the ckt (at $22/mi/mo)
still saved them money over MCI et al. And we allowed resale.
via.net, scruz.net (early on) all the little value-addeds in the
bay area were our customers. MCI charged $2400/mo for the same
thing we did (with more hand0holding though), made you buy a
router from them (inflated) didn't let you into it, and disallowed
resale -- exceptions were made in our neighborhoods.
We sold 24/7 28K nailup for $85/mo; 56K frame with 19K CIR for <
$50/mo. CHEEP!! ANd made money doing it.
I have been told it was named for a the resturant by the same name. Tom could
probably give more details.
This was around the same time that spies.com moved from Apple to General Magic
then later to what became WebTV. Spies was also the home of rotten.com. When
what became ebay.com was just starting, he asked Andy to put the auction service
on spies. Andy didn't want to, so he used a domain he had for the 'east
bay'.