Do you remember the screeching, nails-on-chalkboard moan of AOL Dial-up internet? It seems that these eldritch tones will finally be silenced next month.
“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,” said a recent statement from the company. “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.”
In an article about the announcement, The New York Times noted that many people have already abandoned dial-up internet for broadband. However, there was a time when AOL’s Dial-up reigned supreme. Its ear-curdling loading process gave AOL Instant Messenger users plenty of time to pick the perfect lyrics for their away messages (IYKYK).
Dial-up requires use of a standard telephone line to connect to the internet, according to Lenovo. It works by “dialing” a phone number provided by an internet service provider like AOL and establishing a connection through a modem. Broadband connections don’t require “calling” with each use, Purdue University explained. When a connection is made through a cable or digital subscriber line, it remains connected.
AOL celebrated its 40th birthday this May, though its roots go back to 1983, when Steve Case was hired at a company called Control Video, an online gaming system that connected to Atari 2600 users’ phone lines. First called Quantum Computer Services, the company became America Online in 1989, the same year Elwood Edwards was hired to record its now-iconic “You’ve Got Mail” greeting. Nearly a decade later Nora Ephron’s rom-com classic with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan borrowed that for its title.
“In the early 1990s most Americans had little awareness of the internet, and no experience using it. America Online (AOL) brought the internet to a mass market through a vast and famously aggressive direct mailing campaign that sent free trial discs to millions of homes,” said the Smithsonian of AOL’s approach. Floppy disks and CDs could be found everywhere from Blockbuster stores to banks and packages of Omaha steaks.
By 1999, AOL had over 18 million subscribers – the biggest internet provider in the country – and it acquired MapQuest that year. Two years prior, AIM was launched.
While dial-up was easily accessed at a time when the public was just getting online, it could also be cumbersome. In homes with just one phone line, being on the internet meant that calls weren’t coming through when AIM or Ask Jeeves was in use. Dial-up internet also has slow speeds, and Lenovo said it isn’t ideal for gaming. Broadband doesn’t have that issue, and it is faster.
In 2000, America Online merged with Time Warner, at the time the biggest merger in history. It officially became known as AOL starting in 2006 and it cut ties with Time Warner in 2010. More changes came in the next decade, from AOL acquiring The Huffington Post to Verizon acquiring both AOL and Yahoo! AOL ended its instant messenger program in 2017.
With the end of AOL Dial-up, the company said that customers should not expect the change to “affect any other benefits,” in their plans.
U.S. Census Bureau data indicated that at around 163,000 households used dial-up as of 2023. According to Forbes, “some in rural areas with zero or limited broadband still rely on it.” While AOL isn’t offering dial-up after Sept. 30, some companies – such as NetZero – still do.