In 1997 I got a job at a college where only the college administrators had internet and it was via WinProxy and a modem on my desktop PC. They were paying for a number of ISP email addresses. They also had a static website hosted elsewhere on a pre-OSX Mac.

I was able to propose spending $1,000 on a web/email server and putting in a 56K ISDN line for a lower monthly cost. This also gave them full control over their web server to write PHP and use MySQL. It also allowed every staff member to have an email on their own domain and web access. We also put Squid proxy on the server to cache some of the web browsing. It worked well. Later when we were able to upgrade to DSL, we also added the computer lab to the internet. Fun times.