You've Got Mail no more – AOL is bidding farewell to dial-up internet
'AOL routinely evaluates its products and services and has decided to discontinue dial-up internet,' AOL wrote in a brief update on its support site – noting that dial-up and associated software 'optimised for older operating systems' will soon be unavailable on AOL plans.
AOL, formerly America Online, introduced many households to the World Wide Web for the first time when its dial-up service launched in 1991, rising to prominence in the 90s and early 2000s. In Hong Kong, AOL briefly offered dial-up access in the late 1990s, arriving in a crowded internet service providers market dominated by Netvigator. South China Morning Post coverage at the time captured both
industry unease at its launch and
early reviews of its pricing, software and bilingual content.
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The creaky door to the internet was characterised by a once-ubiquitous series of beeps and buzzes heard over the phone used to connect your computer online – along with frustrations of being kicked off the web if anyone else at home needed the landline for another call, and an endless bombardment of CDs mailed out by AOL to advertise free trials.
Eventually, broadband and wireless offerings emerged and rose to dominance, doing away with dial-up's quirks for most people accessing the internet today.
Still, a handful of consumers have continued to rely on internet services connected over telephone lines. In the United States, according to Census Bureau data, an estimated 163,401 households were using dial-up alone to get online in 2023, representing just over 0.13 per cent of all homes with internet subscriptions nationwide.
AOL will pull the plug and end its dial-up internet service after more than 30 years. Photo: TNS
AOL was the largest dial-up internet provider for some time, but not the only one to emerge over the years. Some smaller internet providers continue to offer dial-up today. Regardless, the decline of dial-up has been a long time coming. And AOL shutting down its service arrives as other relics of the internet's earlier days continue to disappear.
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