You’ve Got Mail No More.
AOL dial-up is ending on September 30th according to a post on the company’s website. It’s the end of the service that was synonymous with the internet for many years since its launch in 1991. AOL is shutting down its dial-up internet service after more than four decades. The service which connected modems through phone lines at one time boasted millions of customers
AOL routinely evaluates its products and services and has decided to discontinue Dial-up Internet,” which was the post by the Yahoo-owned company. “This service will no longer be available in AOL plans. As a result, on September 30, 2025 this service and the associated software, the AOL Dialer software and AOL Shield browser, which are optimized for older operating systems and dial-up internet connections, will be discontinued.”
The last count, a 2019 US census estimated that 265,000 people in the United States were still using dial-up internet, The company says on the page that the shutdown follows a routine evaluation of its products and services.
The hum and whir of a dial up modem was how many people first connected to the internet.
At its height, a dial-up connection could manage up to 56 kilobits per second under ideal conditions, according to Apple Insider. Modern connections are measured up to gigabits per second. The consumer-friendly internet connection service provided what the tech news website called a “walled garden” internet experience through trial CDs in the early days of internet proliferation. According to Apple Insider, the company had 10 million customers by 1995.
New technologies and faster speeds rendered dial-up a connection of the past. As the technology landscape changed, so did the status of AOL.
