I’m shocked that AOL’s dial-up internet service is still in use. AOL has announced its dial-up internet service will soon come to a close. In a nostalgic and saddening announcement for some, AOL announced it will discontinue its dial-up international services on September 30 of this year. CNBC provided more details on the move by AOL: In the hazy impressions of memory, some may even recall it fondly: The AOL dial-up internet service that those of a certain age associate with the World Wide Web is coming to a close. The company, also known by its “You’ve got mail” greeting and the CD trial discs — so many CDs — made the announcement on its website. “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. Absent the wireless signals of the modern day, dial-up connected to the internet using a conventional telephone line, emitting a distinctive, high-pitched chirping sound in the process. AOL, now part of Yahoo, said the dial-up service, along with the AOL Dialer software and AOL Shield browser, will be discontinued on Sept. 30. America Online was famous for its free trial discs, which seemed to be everywhere in the 1990s when the internet was gaining steam in households across the United States and beyond. It changed its name to just AOL in 2006. Verizon sold AOL and Yahoo to private equity firm Apollo Global Management for $5 billion in 2021. AOL will be discontinuing its dial-up internet service after 34 years in September. pic.twitter.com/84TVdRPbOh — IGN (@IGN) August 11, 2025 The New York Times provided details on how many people still use AOL’s dial-up internet services: AOL announced that its dial-up internet service will be discontinued next month. If this is how you learned that AOL’s dial-up still exists — presumably you read this on a broadband internet connection — you’re not alone. The service, seen by many as a relic of the early days of the internet, will be discontinued Sept. 30 along with its associated software, the company said. AOL made the announcement quietly via a statement on its help portal on Friday: “AOL routinely evaluates its products and services and has decided to discontinue dial-up internet.” For many, the most surprising part of the news may have been that AOL was still offering dial-up service at all. In 2023, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, an estimated 163,000 households in the United States were using only dial-up for internet service — representing just over 1 percent of the nation’s household internet subscriptions. But back in the 1990s, AOL’s dial-up tone — a series of beeps, bursts of static and earsplitting screeches — and “You’ve got mail” email alert were the soundtrack for many Americans as they learned how to navigate the internet. The service joins a growing list of early internet products to be retired in recent years. Microsoft discontinued Skype in May and Internet Explorer in 2022. AOL’s own instant messaging service, AIM, which connected a generation to their classmates and crushes, was shut down in 2017. The AOL announcement also prompted nostalgia online for the dial-up era, when web pages took minutes to load rather than a second, picking up a landline telephone meant losing your internet connection and many viewed the World Wide Web through a lens of excitement, wonder and possibility. AOL was also a key plot element in the 1998 romantic comedy “You’ve Got Mail,” in which characters played by Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan fall in love over AOL messages. The company’s CDs, offering free trials of internet time measured in hours, were a familiar form of junk mail across the United States in the 1990s. In 2000, America Online, as the company was known then, was the world’s largest internet company. Does this sound bring back memories? AOL says it will discontinue dial-up internet on September 30 May this sound echo in eternity:pic.twitter.com/I0zKIPERbX — Morning Brew (@MorningBrew) August 9, 2025