--- title: "The internet in 1991" description: "The web goes public, and there is exactly one website. 1 websites, 9.6 kbps at home, $9,000 for a gigabyte of storage — and what a download actually took." url: https://atoneplace.net/internet-in/1991/ site: "At One Place" --- # The internet in 1991 **The internet in 1991: The web goes public, and there is exactly one website.** 1 hostnames · A 9,600 bps dial-up modem, if you were well equipped. Many people still had 2,400. The web existed as a single site at CERN describing what the web was, and almost nobody outside particle physics had heard of it. What people meant by "online" in 1991 was a bulletin board system, a university Usenet feed, or a commercial service like CompuServe or Prodigy, none of which connected to each other in any meaningful way. Connecting meant dialling a phone number and occupying the household line, and long-distance charges made the geography of which BBS you called a financial decision. A gigabyte of storage cost about the price of a used car. ## The numbers - **Websites:** 1 hostnames responding to HTTP - **Typical connection:** 9.6 kbps — A 9,600 bps dial-up modem, if you were well equipped. Many people still had 2,400. - **A gigabyte of storage cost:** $9,000, in 1991 dollars ## How long things took to download *Assuming the connection ran at its rated speed throughout, which it did not. Real dial-up throughput after protocol overhead was typically 10 to 20 per cent below the modem's rating.* | What | At 9.6 kbps | | --- | --- | | A 3 MB song | 43 minutes | | A 5 MB photo | 1 hours 11 minutes | | A 700 MB CD image | 6.9 days | | A 4 GB film | 40 days | | A 50 GB game | 506 days | ## What arrived in 1991 - The World Wide Web, made publicly available in August - Linux 0.01 - The first webcam, pointed at a coffee pot in Cambridge ## The thing people misremember > Tim Berners-Lee did not invent the internet. The internet — the network and its protocols — dates to the 1970s and 1980s. He invented the web, which is one thing that runs on it, and the distinction is the difference between a road and a shop. ## Against the years around it | Year | Hostnames | Typical speed | $/GB of storage | A 4 GB film took | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1991 | 1 | 9.6 kbps | $9,000 | 40 days | | 1993 | 130 | 14.4 kbps | $4,000 | 27 days | Between 1991 and 2020 the typical connection went from 9.6 kbps to 100 Mbps, a factor of 10,417, and a gigabyte of storage fell from $9,000 to $0.020 — a factor of 450,000. The 4 GB film that took 40 days takes 6 minutes. ## Common questions ### What was the internet like in 1991? The web goes public, and there is exactly one website. A typical home connection was 9.6 kbps, there were about 1 hostnames responding on the web, and a gigabyte of storage cost $9,000. ### How long did it take to download a film in 1991? A 4 GB film at 9.6 kbps would have taken about 40 days, assuming the connection held its rated speed the whole way, which it would not have. ### How many websites were there in 1991? About 1 hostnames responded to HTTP. That counts hostnames rather than distinct sites, which is why the figure occasionally falls between years without the web shrinking. ### What do people get wrong about 1991? Tim Berners-Lee did not invent the internet. The internet — the network and its protocols — dates to the 1970s and 1980s. He invented the web, which is one thing that runs on it, and the distinction is the difference between a road and a shop. ## Related pages - [The internet in 1993](https://atoneplace.net/internet-in/1993/) - [Every year side by side](https://atoneplace.net/internet-in/) - [Convert data units](https://atoneplace.net/convert/) ## Sources - Web Server Survey — Netcraft (https://www.netcraft.com/blog/category/web-server-survey/) - ICT Facts and Figures / World Telecommunication Indicators — International Telecommunication Union (https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/) - Historical cost of computer memory and storage — Compiled from contemporaneous retail advertising and manufacturer price lists (/about/)