AOL will shut down its dial-up service – a relic of the early Internet

The AOL dial-up internet service of the World Wide Web’s early days – known for its nostalgic beeps and chirps – is coming to an end.

The company – owned by Marc Rowan-led asset management giant Apollo Global – will discontinue the seldom-used service Sept. 30.

“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,” the web provider said Friday.

There were around 163,000 US households that still used dial-up as their only way to connect to the internet in 2023 – accounting for just 1% of the nation’s household internet subscriptions, according to data from the US Census Bureau.

Many Americans started with AOL as they learned to use the Internet. The dial-up service connected to a conventional telephone line, which meant picking up the landline phone would cut off your web connection. 

AOL’s recognizable dial-up tone and email alert was so famous that it became a key plot tool in the 1998 romantic comedy “You’ve Got Mail” with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.

In 2000, AOL – then called America Online – was the world’s largest internet company.

But dial-up connections were replaced over the years with high-speed lines, which operate several thousand times faster.

Telecom giant Verizon bought the service for $5.5 billion in 2015 and two years later bought Yahoo to create a new media group.

In 2021, Verizon sold off both AOL and Verizon to Apollo for $5 billion.

AOL will become the latest relics from the early days of the Internet to go dark.

Microsoft scrapped pioneering internet calling service Skype in May, and legacy browser Internet Explorer in 2022.

AOL’s instant messaging service AIM was shut down in 2017.