AOL was once the largest provider of internet service for Americans. Today, it belongs to Yahoo! Inc. and operates as a web portal where you can read online articles aggregated from sources across the web—and it also still offers dial-up internet service! But not for much longer.
Last week, AOL announced that it will be discontinuing its dial-up internet service starting September 30, 2025. Active users will need to switch to another internet provider by then, and the shutdown will also affect associated software including AOL Dialer and AOL Shield.
Once bustling with 30 million customers
It’s quite stunning that AOL is still offering dial-up service in 2025, and more astonishing that people are still paying for it. In 2022, one report counted about 175,000 dial-up subscribers in the US—and that number has surely dwindled in the three years since, but not to zero.
The reason why people still pay for dial-up is more sad than amusing: many people in rural areas simply have no other access to the internet, forced to rely on dial-up through telephone lines to stay connected. AOL isn’t the only dial-up provider, but was the largest for a long time.
AOL began offering its dial-up internet service back in 1991, then grew to be the largest internet provider in the world in 2000 with around 30 million active users. In recent years, however, AOL earned more from tech support and digital security services than from its internet services.
Dial-up internet is a legacy service
In recent years, the number of dial-up internet users has fallen sharply due to the proliferation of broadband infrastructure in the US. Unfortunately, broadband still hasn’t reached every nook of the country, and those who have no other option must still resort to traditional dial-up access.
Dial-up isn’t only slow and impractical, but also exceedingly expensive for what you get, plus susceptible to cyberattacks and other security risks.
Many now consider dial-up internet to be a legacy service and we wouldn’t be caught dead using such an outdated technology—but legacy tech continues to power our country in ways unseen. For example, Windows 95 and floppy disks are still used in air traffic control and some businesses still use Commodore 64s for customer checkouts.