New York
—
AOL, an internet pioneer that brought millions of Americans online for the first time, is discontinuing its dial-up service next month.
The company that brought the internet to the masses in the 1990s and early 2000s recently posted a notice on its website saying that it “routinely evaluates its products and has decided to discontinue Dial-up Internet” on September 30, ending more than three decades of operations.
Even as broadband and wireless internet became the predominant way people access the internet, AOL never stopped offering its sluggish service that connects people to its service over a landline. However, about 160,000 people connect to the internet through their landline telephone service, data from the 2023 US Census shows.
From “You’ve Got Mail” to “Sex and the City,” AOL’s internet was a mainstay in 1990s pop culture and engrained in Americans’ lives, especially for the tones, beeps and screeches it regularly provided. And the company regularly flooded people’s mailboxes with CDs offering free trials to access the internet.
But similar to dial-up internet, AOL is also a shell of itself. The brand’s popular internet messaging service, AIM, was shut down in 2017 and AOL itself has gone through many parent companies.
It once merged with CNN’s former owner, Time Warner, in a famously disastrous acquisition. It is now owned by a private equity firm, which also owns Yahoo.
AOL was formerly known as America Online. A spokesperson said the “change does not impact the numerous other valued products and services that these subscribers are able to access and enjoy as part of their plans.”