"This data comes from MCI and Bell for a cost accounting system performed on cities with over 50,000 people.
You know, Steve, these two phone companies have already been able to cover most of the cities in the US."
In the era when fiber optics hadn't become widespread, dial-up internet was the mainstream.
The data line and phone line for accessing the internet are actually the same, even though the internet speed could be limited.
But this greatly reduced the cost of internet access, as service providers didn't need to bear the costs of laying down infrastructure such as lines.
Once the lines were established, the only investment service providers needed to make was in hardware like switches and modems.
But it was a one-time investment, and other than expanding scale, it wouldn't incur additional costs in subsequent use.
The information Dean is presenting now includes all these factors and the final calculated cost.
