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[Starman]

Unfortunately I don't really have any really old speed tests to share. Oldest I can find from my speedtest.net account was in 2010 on my then Sky ADSL connection, and one from today just to show improvement over time



My first internet connection was over dial-up sometime around 1995 - I remember using Telewest as we had a cable telephone line at the time for a while interspersed with using those free dial-up services where you would dial an 0800 number and spend hours attempting to connect but only be greeted with an engaged tone. Also I remember being given a number and login name for some private BT dial-up number that went round my friends when I was a teenager. I have no idea where they came from but I was never changed and I remember leaving my desktop on for days on end because I knew if the connection dropped I might not get reconnected. I had a friend who's dad paid for an 64k ISDN line and we had a 128k ISDN connection for my whole secondary school 

First broadband connection I had was when Telewest launched their Blueyonder cable modem 512k offering in the early 2000. It's funny to think that back then I was 16 or 17 working 12 hours a week around college but paying £50 per month for broadband I stayed with Telewest even though I moved a couple of times.

First experience with ADSL was when we moved to a road that was some how ducted but never had cables pulled through when Telewest installed in my local area in 1995 (Fixed only couple of years ago) this was with Sky - good line (approx 18Mb sync). Moved to current address - didn't want cable here mainly due to aesthetic reasons and stories of poor contention since the Telewest days. Had ADSL with O2 (only approx 6Mb sync) moved to FTTC as my town fairly early on in late 2010 was with BT until last year when I transferred to PlusNet.

[Weaver]

Back in the early 00s, I had a Demon dial-up account. I managed to get 49 kbps even on my long 4.5 mi line. Demon's attractions for me were: a static IPv4 address for free (or a block of however many for nowt); fantastic powerful Microsoft compression in their servers (MPPC was it called?); really high-quality 56k modems; ML-PPC, which I used (with ISDN) for some of my customers; good documentation; very straightforward, no-nonsense; and the fact that it worked with BT Surftime, which meant you could be connected all day with no per-minute charge. It was about £40 per month for the BT bit and £25 to Demon, iirc.

[roseway]

I've got a friend who still uses a dial-up connection by choice, not necessity. She uses Freeola who offer a free dial-up service on an 0845 number. Her telephone service includes free 0845 calls, so her internet access is completely free.

[Starman]

Her telephone service includes free 0845 calls, so her internet access is completely free.

That's lucky

I remember back when most inclusive call offering had an exclusion specifically for dial up access number but I guess now days there must only be a few tens of thousands of dial-up users left in the country whole. Not including automated monitoring equipment etc - I know that the Environment Agency uses dial-up for their water level monitoring stations although I'd assume it would call up some private modem rack rather than internet proper.