AOL Terminates Dial-Up Internet Connection via Modem and ISDN
AOL Bids Farewell to Dial-Up Internet: A 34-Year Journey Comes to an End
After 34 years of providing dial-up internet service to millions of users worldwide, America Online (AOL) has announced that it will be discontinuing its dial-up internet service via modem and ISDN on September 30, 2025 [1][2]. This marks the end of an era for AOL, a company that revolutionised the way people accessed the internet in the early days.
In the 1990s, AOL was the first to make dial-up internet accessible to the masses. All you needed to do to use AOL service was to install the software and connect a modem. With data rates of up to 64 kbit/s and up to 128 kbit/s when bundling the two channels, ISDN cards offered a faster connection compared to the maximum speed of around 56 Kbit/s during dial-up internet, realistically 40 to 50 [1].
AOL's innovative approach was evident in its marketing strategies as well. The company offered free trial periods with its CDs, initially 50 hours, later even "1000 hours free for 45 days" [1]. Despite this, the slow speeds of dial-up internet meant that photos downloaded were usually compressed. A 100 Kilobyte photo took 10 to 15 seconds to download, while a 1 MB photo took about 2.5 minutes to download with a modem, but ISDN downloaded it bundled in half the time [1].
The advent of mobile internet (3G) around 2003 and the increasing speed of fiber-optic internet since the 2010s have made dial-up internet obsolete. DSL and cable internet gradually replaced modems and ISDN with increasingly affordable prices at the end of the 90s [1].
In the US, AOL had around 10 million paying dial-up users in 1995, a figure that dropped to only 163,000 users in 2023 [1]. In Germany, AOL had around about five million people per month with its internet offerings at its peak. AOL had around two million customers in Germany when its internet access business was taken over by Hansenet in 2007 [1].
As AOL bids farewell to its dial-up internet service, it is also retiring its AOL Dialer software and AOL Shield browser on September 30, 2025. These tools were optimized for older operating systems and dial-up internet connections [1]. In Germany, Fritzbox manufacturer AVM (now Fritz GmbH) was the market leader for modems and ISDN cards when AOL launched [1]. Users paid double for ISDN, for example, 15 Pfennig per channel and minute [1].
The end of AOL's dial-up internet service signifies the end of an era in internet history. As we move forward, we remember the role AOL played in making the internet accessible to the masses and shaping the way we use the internet today.
[1] - [Source 1] [2] - [Source 2]
The community policy for AOL will undoubtedly undergo changes with the discontinuation of its dial-up internet service, while the employment policy may need to adapt as the company moves away from supporting outdated technologies like dial-up and ISDN. Regardless, the technology era that AOL pioneered has effectively transformed, with mobile internet and fiber-optic internet rendering dial-up obsolete, propelling us towards a more advanced digital future.
