After 34 long and (mostly) fruitful years, AOL is finally shutting down its dial-up internet service. And while this could leave some users in parts of rural America struggling to connect to the internet, the end of AOL’s dial-up service is probably well overdue.
A Dial-Up Explainer for Younger Readers…
For the uninitiated (likely, anyone under the age of around 25), dial-up meant that you literally had to tap into your landline to access the internet. And speeds were so slow that web pages took a while to load, and images used to appear gradually from top to bottom.
Through the 1990s, dial-up was all we had, and millions of people used AOL’s internet service to get online thanks to the free CDs that were given away in everything from magazines to cereal boxes.
AOL Is Shutting Down Its Dial-Up Service
Thanks to a statement posted on the AOL website, we now know that the company’s dial-up internet service is being discontinued. AOL’s dial-up will finally go offline on September 30, 2025, which will be 34 years since it was first launched (in 1991).
Alongside the dial-up internet service, AOL is discontinuing the AOL Dialer software and AOL Shield browser. Which makes sense given that the latter two only existed to support older operating systems and dial-up internet connections.
AOL’s reasoning for shutting down its dial-up offering is that it “routinely evaluates its products and services.” And this time, finally, its dial-up service was clearly deemed surplus to requirements. Which is no great surprise in 2025, when the vast majority of people are using broadband, and have been for decades.
What may come as a surprise to some is that AOL’s dial-up internet service is (at the time of writing) still a thing. However, as recently as 2019, the US census estimated that 265,000 people in the US were still using dial-up to connect to the internet. AOL’s decision suggests that that number has now dwindled further, but that still means some people will be impacted by this news.
Interestingly, AOL still boasts millions of customers who pay for another subscription service.
Seniors in Rural America May Go Offline
AOL’s discontinuation of dial-up is primarily going to affect seniors and people living in rural America. And if these two groups were to be presented in the form of a Venn diagram, I suspect the majority would fit in the middle where the two circles overlap.
There may end up being a handful of people knocked offline entirely by this change. However, I suspect most seniors just need nudging in the right direction to access the internet in another way, and everywhere other than the most rural parts of America will have a second option now.
