I was there. And it wasn't that long ago. Before the Internet, and before wifi and broadband, we had dial-up bulletin board services that used a modem. They were text-based and when you started a download, you had to wait for it to finish before you could do anything else. Some bulletin boards were connected by dedicated phone lines between them, so you could access multiple BBS's without having to hang up and dial multiple phone numbers. Also, the good BBS's were frequently busy. So you had to leave your modem program to keep re-dialing until you could finally get through.