AOL’s Dial-Up Internet Service Comes to an End

AOL has officially ended its dial-up internet service as of Tuesday, September 30. The company previously announced it would make updates focused on “optimizing for older operating systems” and decided to discontinue dial-up service after ongoing assessments.

The dial-up option is no longer featured on AOL’s website. As of Wednesday, former support pages related to the AOL dialer have become unavailable, prompting a wave of nostalgic farewells from users on social media.

Once a pioneer in connecting households to the internet, AOL’s dial-up service gained significant popularity in the 1990s and early 2000s. The connection was often marked by a series of beeping sounds, and many users remember the inconvenience of being disconnected if someone picked up a landline phone while they were online. And who could forget the countless CDs AOL mailed out to sign up new users?

Though broadband and wireless internet have largely replaced dial-up services, a small segment of users still rely on this technology. Recent Census Bureau data indicates that about 163,401 households in the U.S. were using dial-up in 2023.

While AOL has been the largest provider of dial-up service, it’s worth noting that some smaller internet companies still offer dial-up to their customers. The shift away from dial-up has been a gradual process. As other early internet technologies fade away, AOL’s service is now officially discontinued.

This isn’t the only significant tech service to retire recently; Microsoft phased out Skype video calling earlier this year, and Internet Explorer was discontinued in 2022. AOL, once heralded as a leader in online communications since its founding in 1997, has also seen its chat platform fail to maintain competitiveness over the years.

Today, AOL is far from the powerhouse it once was. It’s perhaps best known now for that famous phrase, “You’ve got mail,” recognized from the 1998 movie featuring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.

Founded in 1985 initially as a quantum computer service, AOL rebranded in 1991 and entered the public market. Its market value peaked at nearly $164 billion during the dot-com boom in 2000, but a troubled merger with Time Warner Inc. led to its acquisition by Verizon. Verizon eventually sold AOL, along with Yahoo, to a private equity firm.

AOL now operates under the Yahoo brand, but there has been no official comment regarding the discontinuation of dial-up from a Yahoo spokesperson.

When Verizon sold AOL in 2021, sources indicated that the dial-up user count had dwindled to just a few thousand from a peak of 2.1 million in the late 90s and early 2000s. Despite the end of dial-up, AOL continues to provide free email services along with subscriptions aimed at identity protection and technical support.