If you’re sufficiently old to recollect the signature pinging, boinging, and hissing sounds that got here with connecting to the Web within the early days, maintain onto these reminiscences — AOL simply introduced that its dial-up is about to hold up ceaselessly.
The corporate launched a press release on Friday, which learn: “AOL routinely evaluates its services and products and has determined to discontinue Dial-up Web.”
The service and all related software program will cease engaged on September 30, 2025, the corporate added.
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Wait, AOL dial-up service has been obtainable all this time? That is a sound query, and the reply is shockingly sure. The New York Occasions, citing U.S. Census Bureau information, reviews that in 2023, 163,000 United States households relied on dial-up service to entry the web. That represents simply over 1 % of all web subscribers within the nation.
The final time AOL launched dial-up consumer numbers was in 2015, when the corporate reported two million customers that represented $40 million a month in income. The corporate didn’t supply present consumer numbers with its closing announcement.
AOL’s dial-up service unlocked web entry for hundreds of thousands of customers within the Nineties, and its signature “You have Acquired Mail” sign-on announcement was so iconic that it spurred a rom-com of the identical title starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan as a pair who fall in love over on the spot messaging.
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Whereas the closure is certain to encourage a wave of nostalgic thinkpieces a couple of happier time of the web’s existence, Gen Xers ought to do not forget that the net might need appeared nicer than what we now have as we speak, but it surely was insanely slower. Dial-up web speeds common about 56 kilobytes a second, reviews The Occasions. Typical broadband connections are a number of thousand occasions sooner. Take into consideration that the following time you are annoyed that an internet web page took greater than half a second to load.
Finish of an Period…
Dial Up Web might be discontinued by AOL on September 30, 2025 pic.twitter.com/MXn5t4MzJv
— ? Bodily Media Eternally ? (@VHSDVDBLURAY4K) August 9, 2025
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If you’re sufficiently old to recollect the signature pinging, boinging, and hissing sounds that got here with connecting to the Web within the early days, maintain onto these reminiscences — AOL simply introduced that its dial-up is about to hold up ceaselessly.
The corporate launched a press release on Friday, which learn: “AOL routinely evaluates its services and products and has determined to discontinue Dial-up Web.”
The service and all related software program will cease engaged on September 30, 2025, the corporate added.
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