Additional Coverage:
After more than 40 years of service, AOL will discontinue its dial-up internet service on September 30th. The company cited a routine evaluation of its products and services as the reason for the shutdown.
For many, the distinctive hum and whir of a dial-up modem was the sound of their first foray into the online world. At its peak, dial-up offered speeds up to 56 kilobits per second, a stark contrast to modern gigabit connections. AOL’s user-friendly service, initially distributed through trial CDs, provided a curated online experience during the internet’s early days, amassing 10 million customers by 1995.
However, advances in technology and the demand for faster speeds gradually relegated dial-up to obsolescence. AOL’s fortunes mirrored this technological shift.
The company’s highly publicized merger with Time Warner in 2000 ultimately faltered, leading to a spin-off in 2009. Verizon acquired AOL in 2015 for $4.4 billion, at which point the company still retained 2.1 million dial-up subscribers.
By 2021, when Apollo Global Management acquired AOL from Verizon, that number had dwindled to just a few thousand.