Dial-Up Internet
The handshake noise, and somebody picking up the phone mid-download.
56k modems, per-minute charges, and a household rule that nobody used the phone after six.
The modem noise is one of the most recognisable sounds of the decade: a series of tones negotiating a connection, ending in static. Then you were online, at about 5KB a second.
AOL sent free CDs with everything. Freeserve made it free in 1998 by taking a cut of the call charges, which changed British internet use overnight.
Cost back then
1p a minute, plus the phone bill
Goes for now
The sound is a ringtone now
