AOL Closes Its Dial-Up Internet Service on September 30

• AOL will close its dial-up internet service on September 30, 2025.
• Only 0.13% of households in the USA use dial-up.
• AOL was popular in the 90s, but has since lost its place to broadband internet.

New York (AP) — AOL officially announced the closure of its dial-up internet service, which will take place on September 30, 2025.

This move is the result of a regular evaluation of the company’s products and services. AOL, once a popular dial-up internet provider, has offered access to the global network for over 40 years.

At its peak in the 90s and early 2000s, AOL became synonymous with the internet, attracting millions of users through its services of email and instant messaging. Among the company’s famous phrases was "You’ve Got Mail," which became a symbol of a new era of connectivity.

According to census data, in 2023, only 163,401 households used dial-up for internet access, accounting for approximately 0.13% of all households in the country.

While AOL was for a long time the largest dial-up provider, it has now become just one of the few companies that still promote this type of service. The closure of AOL is part of a broader decline of technologies that were once popular, such as Skype and Internet Explorer, which have also seen their relevance diminish in recent years.

AOL, founded in 1985, has gone through various stages of development, including a merger with Time Warner in 2000, which proved to be disastrous. In 2015, Verizon acquired AOL for $4.4 billion, but by that time the company had already lost a significant portion of its popularity.

Tags: Technology