AOL is finally shutting down dial-up after 34 years
On September 30, 2025, AOL dial-up will officially go silent. According to a statement posted on the company’s website, the Yahoo-owned service—once the default gateway to the internet for millions—will be discontinued, along with its companion AOL Dialer software and AOL Shield browser.
“AOL routinely evaluates its products and services and has decided to discontinue Dial-up Internet,” the company announced. “This service will no longer be available in AOL plans… the AOL Dialer software and AOL Shield browser, which are optimized for older operating systems and dial-up internet connections, will be discontinued.”
For many, AOL’s chirping modem tones are as emblematic of the ’90s as floppy disks and Netscape. First launched in 1991, AOL dial-up not only connected households to email, news, and instant messaging—it shaped the cultural and commercial DNA of the early web.
Surprisingly, the service never fully vanished. As recently as 2019, U.S. Census data estimated that 265,000 Americans still relied on dial-up internet, a relic persisting in pockets of rural America and among loyal subscribers who saw no reason to change.
One such subscriber was the writer’s septuagenarian father. For him, AOL wasn’t just an internet connection—it was a comfort. Even after broadband arrived via his cable package, he kept paying for dial-up, afraid that canceling might jeopardize access to his email, investor forums, or stock portfolio. Only after a painstaking migration to the open web did he finally cut the cord—though not without hesitation. Months later, he admitted feeling sheepish for hanging on so long.
The end of AOL dial-up closes a chapter in internet history at a moment when the web itself is undergoing seismic shifts. The announcement arrives alongside other landmark changes, such as the wind-down of Google Zero and the decline of the ad-supported internet model—both signaling that the internet we knew in the 1990s and early 2000s is truly gone.
What remains is a broadband-dominated, app-driven digital landscape where speed is measured in gigabits, not kilobits, and where “You’ve got mail” is a nostalgic echo rather than a daily greeting. On September 30th, one of the last analog bridges to the early web will vanish—quietly, save for those who can still hear the ghostly screech of a dial-up handshake.
