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Remember dial-up internet? It’s an era that’s about to end

AOL, one of the last providers, is logging off

Updated:

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Mark Huffman
Reporter

Mark Huffman has covered consumer issues since 2004, with a special focus on protecting and empowering older adults. A former news correspondent for the Associated Press Radio Network, Westwood One, and ConsumerAffairs, Mark brings decades of journalistic experience to RetirementLiving.com. He is passionate about giving consumers a voice and helping them make informed decisions. Mark has also created educational content, including Senior Scam Alert, a video resource designed to help seniors recognize and avoid fraud. He holds a B.A. from the University of Kentucky and lives with his family in Richmond, Virginia.
Row of old fashioned computers: Photo by Kimberly Nguyen on Unsplash

Photo by Kimberly Nguyen on Unsplash

Key Insights

  • AOL will discontinue its iconic dial-up internet service on September 30, 2025, ending a 34-year run that defined the early days of the Internet.
  • The decision closes a nostalgic chapter for millions who first logged on with AOL’s dial tones, but only a “low thousands” of U.S. users remained as of the early 2020s.
  • The shutdown also retires the AOL Dialer software and AOL Shield browser, marking a final farewell to an era of pings, screeches, and “You’ve got mail” greetings.

Do you remember your first internet experience? Most likely, it involved a telephone line and a modem that made a weird noise.

Well, those days are coming to an end. AOL has announced it will officially end its dial-up internet service on September 30, 2025. If you’re surprised that dial-up was still around, you’re making AOL’s point. The company points to a gradual decline in usage, finally closing the door on what now seems like a nostalgic experience.

The announcement was recently posted on AOL’s help and support pages and later echoed by its parent company, Yahoo. 

“AOL routinely evaluates its products and services and has decided to discontinue Dial-up Internet,” the company wrote.

Along with the internet service, related software like AOL Dialer and AOL Shield browser—tools designed for an era of slow modems and landlines—will be retired as well.

In the 1990s, dial-up was the way to access the internet, albeit very slowly. AOL boasted more than 18 million subscribers and became nearly synonymous with “getting online.” 

For those old enough to remember, the process was instantly recognizable: a series of loud beeps and static, that hopeful “Welcome! You’ve got mail,” and, for some unlucky households, a sibling picking up the phone and disconnecting everything.

The company was a cultural force, distributing free trial CDs that flooded mailboxes and forging new kinds of social interaction with chat rooms, screen names, and instant messages. Its popularity was immortalized in pop culture—most notably in the 1998 film “You’ve Got Mail.”

But as broadband, cable, fiber, and satellite alternatives swept the marketplace, AOL’s dial-up slowly slipped from relevance. Also, as web pages became larger, a telephone line was unable to adequately display them in a timely fashion.

A decade ago, about 2 million people were using AOL to get online.  In recent years, that number shrank dramatically. According to 2023 Census figures, fewer than 1% of U.S. households currently subscribe to dial-up internet services, about 160,000 to 175,000 households as of 2023.