After 34 Years of Booop-Beep-Beep-Beep-Krsssh-Eee-Brrrrrrr, AOL's Dial-Up Service Is Finally Shutting Down

Gizmodo

4 days ago

It's the end of an era. After 34 years, AOL is pulling the plug on its dial-up internet service.
It's hard to believe that In 2025, with 5G, Wi-Fi, and fiber-optic broadband seemingly everywhere, AOL's classic dial-up service is still operating. Sadly, for the thousands of people still relying on the old school internet service, the company recently announced that it's discontinuing it on Sept. 30.
'AOL routinely evaluates its products and services and has decided to discontinue Dial-up Internet,' the company said in a statement on its help page. 'This service will no longer be available in AOL plans.' The company added that its AOL Dialer software will also be discontinued.
AOL's dial-up service debuted in 1991. It used a computer's modem and a home telephone line to connect to the internet at very slow speeds, typically 56 kilobits per second or less. It became widely known for its characteristic beeps and digital screeches that played as it connected to the web.
Dial-up was eventually surpassed by broadband internet, which uses more advanced tech like cable, fiber-optic lines, or DSL to deliver a constant connection that's hundreds of times faster. While dial-up tops out at about 56 kbps, typical broadband speeds today range from 100 megabits per second to over a gigabit, making it fast enough to stream 4K video, download huge files in seconds, and handle online gaming.
Despite its painfully slow speeds by today's standards, dial-up held on for years in part because of infrastructure challenges. Many rural areas still lack access to broadband, making dial-up the only affordable option. About 22% of Americans in rural areas lack access to broadband, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). And as recently as 2023, about 163,000 U.S. households were still relying on dial-up, according to Census Bureau data. That's just over 1% of all household internet subscriptions.
Back in 2015, AOL's dial-up service still had over two million users and generated more than $40 million in monthly revenue for the company. Since then, its users have dwindled to the 'low thousands.'
AOL's dial-up service joins a growing list of early internet relics being laid to rest in recent years. Microsoft shut down its classic Internet Explorer browser in 2022. Skype, a pioneer in video calls, was discontinued this May as users moved on to newer platforms like Zoom and Google Meet. AOL's own Instant Messenger (AIM) was retired in 2017. The old internet is dying in so many ways. Let's all have a moment of silence, and then let's listen to the sound of a dial-up modem one last time in honor of the good times.