DUO Stories and Memories

“I remember dial up Internet. You couldn’t use your phone if you were going online.”

— DUO began offering ‘dial-up’ internet access in 1996. While it did allow people to connect to the internet from home for the first time, it wasn’t until the introduction of DSL connections (beginning in 2000) that you could use the telephone and the internet simultaneously.

Here’s what it the dial-up modem connection sounded like:

I was an early internet user. Took computer classes back in the late 80’s and a college class in ‘91, connected to the internet shortly after it was made available to the public in ‘93. I am an information junkie and once I signed up with AOL by using one of those free discs they used to send in the mail, I was hooked.

“Back in the day when there was party lines my aunt used to pick up and listen to whoever was talking to someone else. She would wind up coughing and give away she was listening so she would join the conversation.”

— For those too young to remember ‘party lines,’ a party line was a system where several telephone subscribers were connected to the same land line. In order to determine who was supposed to receive a call you had to be attentive to the ringing pattern assigned to your household. DUO discontinued party lines in 1984.

Rabon Smith of Russell Springs was among the very first to sign up for service in 1960. His late wife, Sue, was a 33-year employee of the co-op.

“I had one of the earliest cell phones. If I got hung up on the farm or had a breakdown I could call someone to come and get me.”

“I think that DUO may have been one of the best run companies I have ever known anything about. They haven’t just been good for me, they have been good for Russell County.”