AOL ends dial-up internet service after more than 30 years

AOL is shutting down the dial-up service that introduced homes across the US to the internet.

The offering, which connects to the internet via a phone line, launched more than 30 years ago and was known for its chirpy whirring start-up sound, memorialised in the 1998 film You’ve Got Mail.

But it has long since been eclipsed by faster alternatives.

Fewer than 300,000 people in the US reported having only a dial-up internet connection, compared with more than 300 million with broadband service, according to 2023 government estimates.

“AOL routinely evaluates its products and services and has decided to discontinue Dial-up Internet, ” the company said in a notice to subscribers in the US and Canada on Friday.

The service will no longer be available in AOL plans as of 30 September, the firm added.

AOL sold its UK arm in 2006.

“Thanks for the memories RIP,” wrote AOL co-founder Steve Case, who presided over the firm’s growth in the 1990s.

The company was known for luring customers by mailing them free trial discs and at one point claimed ownership of nearly 40% of the time that Americans spent online.

AOL, which merged with Time Warner in 2000 in a deal widely deemed disastrous, boasted more than 30 million subscribers at the end of 2001.

But its lead had already started to be eroded, as broadband offerings from rivals started to gain traction. As early as 2003, obituaries for dial-up service had begun, as in a Wall Street Journal article that declared: “It’s official. Dial-up is dying.”

In the UK, AOL was toppled from the top spot as internet service provider in 1999.

Time Warner spun off AOL in 2009. It was acquired by Verizon in 2015, which saw value in its mobile technology business and later merged it with Yahoo.

Today, AOL and Yahoo are owned by Apollo Global.