Robert Trifts writes "The X10 network permitted both users and sysops to join the .X10 packet switching networks via normal phone lines. A user could log into any BBS on any.X10 system without incurring a long distance charge."

"Essentially, it was telnet without IP - or more properly stated - telnet via .X10."

".X10 was great technology - but it was expensive and many users seemed unwilling to pay for X10 at the rate it was being sold. Sysops, in particular, found the cost of .X10 membership hard to justify."

X10 also had a feature users hated. X10 usage was metered. You paid for how much and how long you used it. USERS hated that aspect of it. It bankrupted many small BBS owners too. It was several years before flat rate unmetered IP would dominate the ISP consumer market."

"Nevertheless, it is clear that .the IDEA behind X10 was one of the key ingredients to the Web. What made IP so important to the Internet boom was not its ease of use - IP is very complicated stuff without a good front end and it still is. What made IP attractive was that it was premised upon selling to the consumer the idea of an online world with no long distance barriers. The whole world was only a few keystrokes away using X10. THAT is the real power behind IP."