It is with mixed emotions, mostly nostalgia, and a little bit of disbelief, that we announce the passing of AOL’s dial-up internet service, set to officially be laid to rest on September 30, 2025.

For many, this will come as shocking news, not because of the shutdown itself, but because most people assumed AOL dial-up died sometime around the invention of YouTube. Yet, like that one celebrity you thought had passed away but just showed up in a new commercial, it’s been quietly living on, still answering the call of a loyal few.

Born in 1991, AOL dial-up was a pioneer, a trailblazer, and, let’s be honest, a frustratingly slow travel companion on the information superhighway. It connected millions of homes to the internet for the first time, ushered in chat rooms, taught us how to send email, and made “You’ve got mail” a household phrase.

Over its 34-year career, AOL dial-up bridged the gap between the analog and digital ages, offering a lifeline to the web through a humble phone line, often at the expense of family members trying to make a call. While its prime was in the late ’90s and early 2000s, a small and loyal user base kept the service alive well into the era of smartphones and fiber optics.

Life Achievements

• Early Years (1991–1995): AOL dial-up burst onto the scene during the Clinton administration, when “going online” was still a novelty. The process involved physically connecting your computer to a phone jack, launching the AOL software, and listening as the modem and ISP exchanged what can only be described as a symphony of robotic mating calls. At a time when loading a single image could take several minutes, it felt revolutionary.

• Golden Age (1996–2002): By the late ’90s, AOL was the way to get online. From chat rooms and instant messages to celebrity “keywords” and a seemingly infinite supply of CDs mailed to your home, the service became a cultural touchstone. The phrase “You’ve got mail” was so iconic it inspired a major Hollywood rom-com starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, cementing AOL dial-up’s place in pop culture history.

• Twilight Years (2003–2024): Broadband entered the chat, and with it, the decline of dial-up began. AOL pivoted toward content, email, and advertising, but a stubborn few, over 160,000 U.S. households as of 2023, continued to log in over phone lines. Some did it out of necessity, others out of habit, and a few, we suspect, out of pure love for the familiar handshake noise of the modem.

• Final Goodbye (2025): On September 30, 2025, AOL will pull the plug on its dial-up service for good. Alongside it, the AOL Dialer and AOL Shield browser, tools designed for the days of 56 kbps speeds, will also be retired. The company assures us that email accounts (yes, Aunt Margaret, your @aol.com address is safe) will remain active, but the days of surfing the web through a phone line are officially over.

Messages from Friends & Family

• “You’ve got mail.” — The voice we’ll never forget
• “Please hang up, I’m online!” — Every ’90s teenager
• “I thought you were gone already.” — Everyone under 30
• “Keyword: Goodbye.” — Steve Case, 2025

Survivors

AOL dial-up is survived by broadband, Wi-Fi, LTE, 5G, the occasional Ethernet cable, and the collective memory of a time when connecting to the internet meant committing to it for the evening. It also leaves behind a small but passionate base of users who never saw a reason to change, and a larger group who didn’t know it was still alive to begin with.

In Lieu of Flowers

The family requests you honor AOL dial-up by:

• Mailing a random floppy disk to a friend, no explanation included
• Starting a conversation in all caps to simulate early chat room etiquette
• Playing the modem handshake sound one last time
• Watching You’ve Got Mail on VHS
• Calling your Aunt Margaret just to tell her it’s over

Go Deeper -> Dial-up Internet to be discontinued – AOL