AOL buries dial-up Internet in the USA - after 34 years

Kevin Hofer

11/8/2025

Translation: machine translated

Internet access pioneer AOL has been offering dial-up connections in the USA since 1991. According to the company, Internet over the telephone line will come to an end at the end of September.

If you were born before the mid-nineties, you will still be familiar with the squeaking, beeping and hissing of the modem when establishing an internet connection. The best-known provider of this service, although not active in Switzerland, was probably AOL. In Germany, for example, because of the adverts featuring tennis legend Boris Becker:

AOL discontinued the service in Germany back in 2007. Now the American internet provider is closing this chapter of early internet access on 30 September 2025 in the USA too. By way of comparison, Swisscom, which provides the basic service in Switzerland, discontinued the dial-up connection in the mid-2010s.

The time of the AOL CD is also likely to be numbered with the end of the dial-up connection. This is because the associated software, the AOL Dialer, is also being discontinued. According to the provider, it takes 10 to 15 minutes to download via the telephone line. Alternatively, you can order a CD with the 2.1 megabyte installation file by telephone - at a time when the storage medium has long since become obsolete. This and the associated support page seem like a relic from a long-forgotten era.

However, the latter does not appear to be completely forgotten: an estimated 175,000 US households still use dial-up connections. These are presumably people who live in remote locations. If they use AOL, they will have to look for alternatives for better or worse.

Kevin Hofer

Senior Editor

kevin.hofer@digitecgalaxus.ch

From big data to big brother, Cyborgs to Sci-Fi. All aspects of technology and society fascinate me.

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