Yeah I don't think we ever got that fast in South Africa. I started out on a 1200 baud modem on something called Beltel which is like Prestel which was the UK equivalent. At the time our entire country's international internet connection was via a 9600 modem based at Grahamstown university and the other universities shared that link AFAIK. Then I got a borrowed VMS account at university of cape town which I could use to telnet to a sun unix box and run IRC and my life changed. Was also phone phreaking from Cape Town at a little later on using BlueBeep to connect to a BBS in Orange County called Digital Decay. Was suuuper lucky when I'd get a 14.4 connection on the international trunk. Mostly it was slower. But the AT&T home country directs had the best lines when they were seizable.