❓WHAT HAPPENED: AOL announced the discontinuation of its dial-up Internet service.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: AOL, now part of Yahoo, and its parent company, Apollo Global Management.
📍WHEN & WHERE: The service will end on September 30, 2023, as announced on AOL’s website.
💬KEY QUOTE: “AOL routinely evaluates its products and services and has decided to discontinue Dial-up Internet. This service will no longer be available in AOL plans,” the company stated.
🎯IMPACT: The move marks the end of an era for a service that was synonymous with early Internet usage in the 1990s.
One-time Internet giant AOL (formerly America Online) will shutter its dial-up Internet service at the end of next month. The company—now a property of Yahoo—whose CD trial discs, “You’ve got mail” greeting, and AOL web browser were ubiquitous for those who lived through the 1990s, made the announcement on its website, stating its dial-up offering will be discontinued on September 30.
“AOL routinely evaluates its products and services and has decided to discontinue Dial-up Internet. This service will no longer be available in AOL plans,” the company said. With cable, fiber-optic, satellite, and wireless Internet technologies now dominating global markets, it is unsurprising that AOL’s dial-up service is shutting down.
Dial-up Internet utilizes a modem connected to a telephone line, and when connecting, generates a familiar—at least for those born before the late-1980s—series of chirps, beeps, and buzzes long associated with the World Wide Web. Along with its dial-up service, AOL says it will also be ending the AOL Dialer software and AOL Shield browser.
Throughout the 1990s, AOL—then known as America Online—was notorious for its never-ending stream of free trial discs that arrived in American mailboxes. In 2006, the company rebranded as AOL, and in 2015, Verizon acquired it. Subsequently, Verizon sold AOL, along with Yahoo, to Apollo Global Management—a private equity firm—in 2021 for $5 billion.
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