If you’re previous sufficient to recollect the signature pinging, boinging, and hissing sounds that got here with connecting to the Web within the early days, maintain onto these recollections — AOL simply introduced that its dial-up is about to hold up eternally.
The corporate launched an announcement 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.
Associated: Billionaire Investor Frank McCourt Jr. Desires to Remodel the Complete Web. Here is How.
Wait, AOL dial-up service has been out there all this time? That is a sound query, and the reply is shockingly sure. The New York Occasions, citing U.S. Census Bureau knowledge, experiences 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 person numbers was in 2015, when the corporate reported two million customers that represented $40 million a month in income. The corporate didn’t provide present person numbers with its closing announcement.
AOL’s dial-up service unlocked web entry for tens of millions of customers within the Nineteen Nineties, and its signature “You’ve got Bought Mail” sign-on announcement was so iconic that it spurred a rom-com of the identical identify starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan as a pair who fall in love over on the spot messaging.
Associated: ‘Thought It Had Been Deleted’: Elon Musk Says His Workforce at X Discovered the Vine Video Archive
Whereas the closure is certain to encourage a wave of nostalgic thinkpieces a few happier time of the web’s existence, Gen Xers ought to keep in mind that the net may need appeared nicer than what we now have as we speak, nevertheless it was insanely slower. Dial-up web speeds common about 56 kilobytes a second, experiences The Occasions. Typical broadband connections are a number of thousand instances sooner. Take into consideration that the subsequent time you are annoyed that an internet web page took greater than half a second to load.
Finish of an Period…
Dial Up Web will probably be discontinued by AOL on September 30, 2025 pic.twitter.com/MXn5t4MzJv
— ? Bodily Media Perpetually ? (@VHSDVDBLURAY4K) August 9, 2025
Be part of high CEOs, founders, and operators on the Degree Up convention to unlock methods for scaling your corporation, boosting income, and constructing sustainable success.
If you’re previous sufficient to recollect the signature pinging, boinging, and hissing sounds that got here with connecting to the Web within the early days, maintain onto these recollections — AOL simply introduced that its dial-up is about to hold up eternally.
The corporate launched an announcement 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.
The remainder of this text is locked.
Be part of Entrepreneur+ as we speak for entry.
