AOL To Discontinue Dial-Up Internet
'Hopefully it's part of a broader plan to wind down the internet entirely.' Michael Shim, Systems Analyst
'Of course they cancel it right when I'm 14% through downloading Titanic .' Roger Ferlet, Frosting Colorist
'I don't trust an internet that doesn't screech in pain.' Brenna Kirby, Data Memorizer
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The Onion
15 hours ago
- The Onion
AOL To Discontinue Dial-Up Internet
AOL has officially announced it will discontinue its dial-up Internet service after more than three decades, ending support for the technology synonymous with the early days of the internet. What do you think? 'Hopefully it's part of a broader plan to wind down the internet entirely.' Michael Shim, Systems Analyst 'Of course they cancel it right when I'm 14% through downloading Titanic .' Roger Ferlet, Frosting Colorist 'I don't trust an internet that doesn't screech in pain.' Brenna Kirby, Data Memorizer
WIRED
a day ago
- WIRED
AOL Will Shut Down Dial-Up Internet Access in September
Benj Edwards, Ars Technica Aug 12, 2025 6:55 PM The move will pinch users in rural or remote areas not yet served by broadband infrastructure or satellite internet. Around 175,000 households still use dial-up internet in the US. A logo for America Online photographed in the early 2000s, when the company provided internet access for millions of people over phone lines. Photograph:After decades of connecting US subscribers to its online service and the internet through telephone lines, AOL recently announced it is finally shutting down its dial-up modem service on September 30, 2025. The announcement marks the end of a technology that served as the primary gateway to the web for millions of users throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. AOL confirmed the shutdown date in a help message to customers: "AOL routinely evaluates its products and services and has decided to discontinue Dial-up Internet. This service will no longer be available in AOL plans." Along with the dial-up service, AOL announced it will retire its AOL Dialer software and AOL Shield browser on the same date. The dialer software managed the connection process between computers and AOL's network, while Shield was a web browser optimized for slower connections and older operating systems. AOL's dial-up service launched as "America Online" in 1991 as a closed commercial online service, with dial-up roots extending back to Quantum Link for Commodore computers in 1985. However, AOL didn't provide actual internet access yet: The ability to browse the web, access newsgroups, or use services like gopher launched in 1994. Before then, AOL users could only access content hosted on AOL's own servers. When AOL finally opened its gates to the internet in 1994, websites were measured in kilobytes, images were small and compressed, and video was essentially impossible. The AOL service grew alongside the web itself, peaking at over 25 million subscribers in the early 2000s before broadband adoption accelerated its decline. According to 2022 US Census data, approximately 175,000 American households still connect to the internet through dial-up services. These users typically live in rural areas where broadband infrastructure doesn't exist or remains prohibitively expensive to install. For these users, the alternatives are limited. Satellite internet now serves between 2 million and 3 million US subscribers split between various services, offering speeds far exceeding dial-up but often with data caps and higher latency. Traditional broadband through DSL, cable, or fiber-optic connections serves the vast majority of US internet users but requires infrastructure investments that don't always make economic sense in sparsely populated areas. The persistence of dial-up highlights the ongoing digital divide in the United States. While urban users enjoy gigabit fiber connections, some rural residents still rely on the same technology that powered the internet of 1995. Even basic tasks like loading a modern webpage—designed with the assumption of broadband speeds—can take minutes over a dial-up connection, or sometimes it doesn't work at all. The gap between dial-up and modern internet connections is staggering. A typical dial-up connection delivered 0.056 megabits per second, while today's average fiber connection provides 500 Mbps—nearly 9,000 times faster. To put this in perspective, downloading a single high-resolution photo that loads instantly on broadband would take several minutes on dial-up. A movie that streams in real time on Netflix would require days of downloading. But for millions of Americans who lived through the dial-up era, these statistics tell only part of the story. The Sound of the Early Internet For those who came online before broadband, dial-up meant a specific ritual: clicking the dial button, hearing your modem dial a local access number, then listening to the distinctive handshake sequence—a cacophony of static, beeps, and hissing that indicated your computer was negotiating a connection with AOL's servers. Once connected, users paid by the hour or through monthly plans that offered limited hours of access. The technology worked by converting digital data into audio signals that traveled over standard telephone lines, originally designed in the 19th century for voice calls. This meant users couldn't receive phone calls while online, leading to countless family disputes over internet time. The fastest consumer modems topped out at 56 kilobits per second under ideal conditions. AOL didn't invent dial-up internet access, but the company perfected the art of making it accessible to non-technical users. Where competitors required users to understand concepts like PPP settings and TCP/IP configurations, AOL provided a single software package that handled everything. Users just needed to insert one of the billions of CD-ROMs the company mailed out, install the software, and click 'Connect.' The company's cultural impact extended far beyond mere connectivity. AOL Instant Messenger introduced many users to real-time digital communication. Chat rooms created some of the internet's first social networks. The famous "You've Got Mail" notification became so iconic that it was a title for a 1998 romantic comedy. For better or worse, AOL keywords trained a generation to navigate the web through corporate-curated portals rather than open searching. Over the years, Ars Technica documented numerous dial-up developments and disasters that plagued AOL users. In 2015, 83-year-old Ron Dorff received phone bills totaling $24,298.93 after his AOL modem started dialing a long-distance number instead of a local access point—a problem that had plagued users since at least 2002, when New York's attorney general received more than 50 complaints about similar billing disasters. The financial risks weren't limited to technical mishaps: AOL itself contributed to user frustration by repeatedly adjusting its pricing strategy. In 2006, the company raised dial-up rates to $25.90 per month—the same price as broadband—in an attempt to push users toward faster connections. This followed years of subscriber losses that saw AOL's user base fall over time as the company struggled with conflicting strategies that included launching a $10 Netscape-branded service in 2003 while maintaining premium pricing for its main offering. The Infrastructure That Remains AOL's shutdown doesn't mean dial-up is completely dead. Several niche providers like NetZero, Juno, and Dialup 4 Less continue to offer dial-up services, particularly in areas where it remains the only option. In the past, some maintained dial-up connections as a backup connection for emergencies, though many still use it for specific tasks that don't require high bandwidth, like processing credit card payments. The Public Switched Telephone Network that carries dial-up signals still exists, though telephone companies increasingly route calls through modern packet-switched networks rather than traditional circuit-switched systems. As long as traditional phone service exists, dial-up remains technically possible—just increasingly impractical as the web grows more demanding. For AOL, maintaining dial-up service likely became more about serving a dwindling but dependent user base than generating meaningful revenue. The infrastructure requirements, customer support needs, and technical maintenance for such a legacy system eventually outweigh the benefits. The September 30 shutdown date gives remaining dial-up users just over one month now to find alternative internet access—a challenge for those in areas where alternatives don't exist. Some may switch to satellite or cellular services despite higher costs. Others may lose internet access entirely, further widening the digital divide that dial-up, for all its limitations, helped bridge for three decades. This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.
Engadget
2 days ago
- Engadget
The Morning After: The best Switch 2 games (so far)
A couple of months since the Switch 2 launched, we've all got to grips with the new magnetic-latching Joy-Cons, the jump in graphic fidelity and (honestly) the wait for a next-gen Zelda or Mario title. With the arrival of Donkey Kong Bananza , the new console has its first entirely new breakout platformer hit, we asked the Engadget team for the must-have games on the Switch 2. With a leap in processing power, the Switch 2 can now handle ostensibly huge games like Hitman and Cyberpunk 2077 . In fact, the latter's release on Nintendo's console nudged me into finally playing the game. I last played it on Google's Stadia cloud gaming service (RIP), and gave up at the tutorial. Already, I'm having a more successful playthrough. I can even share my save between Switch 2 and PS5 — because I'm that lunatic who owns the game on both. I'm also playing my way through the Switch 2 edition of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom , which now runs incredibly smoothly. This time, perhaps, I'll finish it. Read on for the full list — we'll be updating it as more games arrive. — Mat Smith Get Engadget's newsletter delivered direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here! The news you might have missed Ford is developing a $30,000 mid-sized EV pickup It's part of the company's new Universal EV Platform. Ford has announced a new family of products will share its new Universal EV Platform will be shared by a new family of products, and the first of those will be a mid-sized pickup with a starting price of around $30,000. It could be similar in configuration to the Ford 2022 Maverick . A unified EV platform is a pretty dry announcement, but Ford's only two EVs are the F-150 Lightning and Mustang Mach-E, both of which use one-off platforms. With the Universal EV Platform, Ford will be able to build multiple vehicles, including vans, cars and pickups, which should be easier to build and, crucially, cheaper. Continue reading. AOL's dial-up internet still exists (for one more month) Might be time to upgrade. Did you know AOL is part of the company that owns Engadget?. Yeah, it's… intriguing. AOL, a company that brought the internet to millions (including my family), says it will discontinue its dial-up service on September 30, marking the end of an era. First spotted by PC Gamer , the surprising AOL announcement was in a post buried oin its AOL Help page. Continue reading. Paramount knocks out PPV UFC fights for $7.7 billion Now it'll stream them. Paramount just acquired the US rights to UFC for seven years in a deal worth $7.7 billion. The deal covers the organization's full slate of 13 marquee bouts and 30 Fight Night events, starting in 2026. Notably, this means the end of the pay-per-view (PPV) model ESPN+ has favored for premium UFC events. If you think that's a crazy amount of money, how about this: Skydance Media officially acquired all of Paramount and its subsidiaries for $8 billion. Continue reading. DJI puts its drones' obstacle detection tech into robot vacuums Its ROMO cleaners are launching in China first. DJI entered the smart home world with a range of robot vacuums called ROMO. After drones, gimbals and action cameras, it had to be vacuum cleaners, right? The same system that helps DJI drones avoid crashes when recording video apparently translates into a robot vacuum that can navigate a home without running into furniture. DJI is offering the ROMO in three models: the entry-level ROMO S, which starts at around $650;, the mid-range ROMO A, with a transparent vacuum design that goes for around $750,; and the top-of-the-line ROMO P, which has both a transparent vacuum and a base station for at least $950. Continue reading.
