That’s probably counting everyone who had an SMTP email address and/or Usenet access.
Those were commonly available via BBS’s and (in the case of email) via corporate systems, but it didn’t mean you had any ability to make IP connections yourself.
The first time I paid for dial-up Internet was 1993, I think. It was a very cheap provider. You’d dial to their Unix box with a terminal emulator, like a BBS.
Turned out the price was so cheap because they didn’t allow foreign IP connections at all! I could use IRC and connect to local ftp servers within my small European country, but that was basically it. I knew a bunch of people who were IRC addicts and this kind of local access was perfect for them, but I found it useless.
Did I have Internet access then? Technically I could use all the protocols. In practice it wasn’t really the Internet when connections to other countries just fail. The point I’m trying to make here is that “Internet access” in 1992 meant a lot of different things on a scale that doesn’t exist anymore.
Those were commonly available via BBS’s and (in the case of email) via corporate systems, but it didn’t mean you had any ability to make IP connections yourself.
The first time I paid for dial-up Internet was 1993, I think. It was a very cheap provider. You’d dial to their Unix box with a terminal emulator, like a BBS.
Turned out the price was so cheap because they didn’t allow foreign IP connections at all! I could use IRC and connect to local ftp servers within my small European country, but that was basically it. I knew a bunch of people who were IRC addicts and this kind of local access was perfect for them, but I found it useless.
Did I have Internet access then? Technically I could use all the protocols. In practice it wasn’t really the Internet when connections to other countries just fail. The point I’m trying to make here is that “Internet access” in 1992 meant a lot of different things on a scale that doesn’t exist anymore.