My guess is the telecom vendor your school selected told your school’s IT and purchasing teams that their new phone lines cannot handle modem connections, so they would be obligated to buy a separate IP connectivity service from the same vendor.
Being the early 90s, technical expertise about Internet connectivity was sparse and they most likely entered into a contract with this vendor on the strength of their statement.
They were now surprised to find out the truth: that they could’ve kept using their existing paid-for modems instead of upgrading to a new, expensive, high-speed Internet, access circuit tied to a multi-year contract and all the requisite equipment that came along with that.
Being the early 90s, technical expertise about Internet connectivity was sparse and they most likely entered into a contract with this vendor on the strength of their statement.
They were now surprised to find out the truth: that they could’ve kept using their existing paid-for modems instead of upgrading to a new, expensive, high-speed Internet, access circuit tied to a multi-year contract and all the requisite equipment that came along with that.