After 35 years: AOL discontinues dial-up via modem in the USA
Millions of people first explored the Internet thanks to AOL. The US provider still offers dial-up via modem at – but this will come to an end in the fall.
Collection of AOL CDs sent to a student dormitory.
(Image: Zuse)
AOL has announced that it will no longer support dial-up Internet access via a telephone modem in the USA and will discontinue "dial-up Internet" on September 30. The US Internet company has now announced this and added that the dial-up software and the “AOL Shield Browser” will also be withdrawn. Both are optimized for older operating systems and Internet use via telephone modem and are no longer required. It is unclear how many Internet users in the USA are affected by the move, but it is likely to be a few thousand at most and more likely a few hundred. This marks the end of an era, as AOL brought millions of people online for the first time in the 1990s, and not just in the United States.
“I'm in”
AOL's offering began in 1991. Back then, the US company launched an add-on program for DOS to connect to the Internet. The breakthrough came five years later, however, when AOL offered an Internet flat rate for 20 US dollars a month. The company flooded all potential sales markets with millions of CDs for Internet access. In Germany, the campaign was accompanied by a commercial featuring tennis star Boris Becker. His “I'm in, that's easy” became a catchphrase for a while. However, AOL was also successful because the marketing was not aimed at experts but at private individuals without much prior knowledge. AOL later sold its local Internet access business to the then regional provider Hansenet.
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Ten years ago, 2.16 million people in the USA were still connecting to the Internet via modem and AOL. Even then, the maximum speed was still the familiar 56 Kbit/s, far below the usual values at the time. However, the full price of around 15 US dollars per month was still payable. The free trial accounts were also still available. According to the latest US census, an estimated 265,000 people still connected to the internet via telephone modem in 2019. Other providers besides AOL also offer this service. When AOL was acquired in 2021 – together with Yahoo – among others, the group's modem customer base had shrunk to “a few thousand,” CNBC reported. More recent figures are no longer available.
(mho)
