Why we did Internet-in-a-box (was: Remember "Internet-In-A-Box"?)

Tue Jul 21 09:29:07 UTC 2015

In article <A1F92A0E-98F6-4AC0-AAA3-3FD7739D535E at the-watsons.org>, Brett 
Watson <brett at the-watsons.org> writes
>> This goes back a number of years.  There was a product that literally
>>was a cardboard box that contained everything one needed to get started
>>on the Internet.  Just add a modem and a computer, and you were on your
>>way.  No fuss, no "learning curve”.
>
>MCI (way back, original MCI when I worked there) had MCI One that was 
>similar with bundled voice/internet/etc, may be what you’re thinking 
>of or not

There were numerous Internet "in a box" type products available in the 
1994-95 timeframe, based largely on the existing Compuserve "in a box".

I was responsible for the first one to go on sale in the UK, through a 
large chain of electronics retailers. The ISP was UK-Online.

The commercial reason for the packs was to put the product in front of 
as many potential customers as possible, and make it easy to buy. 
Cover-disks on magazines had quite a wide circulation but didn't fully 
address the financial issues because...

...the corresponding operational reason was to overcome the 
bootstrapping problem of how do you sign someone up for an account and 
take a pre-payment if they aren't already online?

A cover-disk could solve the problem of pre-installing the software 
needed, which in those days was generally a paid-for 3rd-party Stack and 
some kind of bulk-licenced browser (eg Trumpet + Netscape); but involved 
giving users a certain period of 'free trial', unless you employed the 
somewhat clumsy option of having them call in with credit card details 
during the set-up process.

What an "in-a-box" product achieved was the ability to get wider 
distribution, because the retailer was typically receiving a 30% margin 
on his sale and therefore happy to have it on his shelves, but the ISP 
was also getting the 70% [less manufacturing cost, obviously] in order 
to part-fund the first month's access and the licence on the software, 
after which the person is online and can subscribe fully if they wish to 
continue.

Even back then, there was the secondary effect that having spammers sign 
up to your service using a succession of "free trial" cover disks wasn't 
something to be encouraged.

How any of this is relevant to IPv6 "in-a-box" I will leave as an 
exercise for the reader. Although my own inclination is to say it's much 
more to do with grappling with legacy hardware and operating systems 
that don't (either happily or at all) support IPv6, than getting a 
reasonably recent PC/CPE configured automagically via an existing IPv4 
connection.
-- 
Roland Perry