Latest news with #AmericaOnline
WIRED
3 hours ago
- Business
- 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.
Qatar Tribune
3 hours ago
- Qatar Tribune
AOL is finally shutting down its dial-up internet service
Agencies AOL's dial-up internet is finally taking its last bow. Yes, while perhaps a dinosaur by today's digital standards, dial-up is still around. But AOL says it's officially pulling the plug for its service on Sept 30. '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 'optimized 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 decades ago, rising to prominence particularly in the 1990s and early 2000s. The creaky door to the internet was characterized 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 a handful of consumers have continued to rely on internet services connected over telephone lines. In the U.S., 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% of all homes with internet subscriptions nationwide. 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. Microsoft retired video calling service Skype just earlier this year, for example — as well as Internet Explorer back in 2022. And in 2017, AOL discontinued its Instant Messenger a chat platform that was once lauded as the biggest trend in online communication.
Time of India
13 hours ago
- Time of India
AOL is finally shutting down its dial-up internet service
By Wyatte Grantham-Philips NEW YORK: AOL 's dial-up internet is finally taking its last bow. Yes, while perhaps a dinosaur by today's digital standards, dial-up is still around. But AOL says it's officially pulling the plug for its service on Sept. 30. "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 "optimized 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 decades ago, rising to prominence particularly in the 90s and early 2000s. The creaky door to the internet was characterized 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 U.S., 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% of all homes with internet subscriptions nationwide. 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. Microsoft retired video calling service Skype just earlier this year, for example - as well as Internet Explorer back in 2022. And in 2017, AOL discontinued its Instant Messenger - a chat platform that was once lauded as the biggest trend in online communication since email when it was founded in 1997, but later struggled to ward off rivals. AOL itself is far from the dominant internet player it was decades ago - when, beyond dial-up and IMs, the company also became known for its "You've got mail" catchphrase that greeted users who checked their inboxes, as famously displayed in the 1998 film starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan by the same name. Before it was America Online, AOL was founded as Quantum Computer Services in 1985. It soon rebranded and hit the public market in 1991. Near the height of the dot-com boom, AOL's market value reached nearly $164 billion in 2000. But tumultuous years followed, and that valuation plummeted as the once-tech pioneer bounced between multiple owners. After a disastrous merger with Time Warner Inc., Verizon acquired AOL - which later sold AOL, along with Yahoo, to a private equity firm. At the time Verzion announced that sale to in 2021, an anonymous source familiar with the transaction told CNBC that the number of AOL dial-up users was "in the low thousands," down from 2.1 million when Verzion first moved to acquire AOL in 2015 - and far below peak demand seen back in the 90s and early 2000s. But beyond dial-up, AOL continues to offer its free email services, as well as subscriptions that advertise identity protection and other tech support.
South China Morning Post
15 hours ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
You've Got Mail no more – AOL is bidding farewell to dial-up internet
AOL's dial-up internet is finally taking its last bow. Yes, while perhaps a dinosaur by today's digital standards, dial-up is still around. But AOL says it's officially pulling the plug for its service on September 30. '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. Play 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.
Daily Record
16 hours ago
- Business
- Daily Record
AOL dial-up to shut down as early inernet pioneer to hang up the phone for good
One of the first internet giants will soon be shut down after 34 years. While many people may be more shocked to hear that service is still running today, AOL is set to dial-up for the last time. For those who used the internet in its early days, you will still be able to recall the array of beeps and boops that came with dial-up technology. Back before smartphones, iPads, and laptops, telephone lines were how households connected to the internet in the 1990s. However 34 years on, we are definitely in a whole new era of technology where this service is no longer required. AOL, otherwise known as America Online, will be shutting down its dial-up internet service for customers in Canada and the US, reports the Express. This shut down may seem like a long time coming as AOL UK was discontinued back 2006 after the firm was purchased by the Carphone Warehouse. However, for those feeling nostalgic, the brand can still be accessed through old email addresses. In fact, you can even still sign up for an account. The shut down of AOL across the pond is set to take place on September 30, 2025, leaving any households who refused to switch to modern broadband services with two options. Either make the much needed upgrade or go without the internet. Dial-up technology was all the rage back in the '90s, which used standard telephone lines to access the internet. This was the perfect system at the time as emails and the web were mostly text-based and websites were much simpler. However, this revolutionary system would struggle to function properly in the current day and age due to websites and games requiring massive amounts of data to load up. In fact, to download a 1GB file, dial-up technology would need one day, 15 hours and 40 minutes as the service had an average data speed of 56 kilobytes per second. In comparison, UK regulator Ofcom says that the average UK broadband speed in 2025 is 223 Mbps - meaning the same file could be downloaded in less than 36 seconds. AOL website states: "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. 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 beeps, boops and sometimes screeches from AOL were a regular sound in households across the US and the UK. This was due to the portals, email services and internet connection it provided at the time. However, some of the AOL products didn't let households access all types of websites. AOL became even more popular in 1998 thanks to Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan's film 'You've Got Mail'. Throughout the film the characters send love letters to each other through AOL email, which inspired others to do the same. The current AOL is owned by Yahoo, which some web users choose as their go to browser. However, it is more likely today that Microsoft or Google has become the default. According to the BBC, in 2023 fewer than 300,000 people in the US reported using a dial-up internet connection. This is drastically smaller than the 300million Amercians using a speedy broadband service to connect to their social media, web browser and streaming sites. Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'.
