Beeee-dee-dee-ksshhhhh—WHREEEE! AOL ends dial-up service after 34 years...Yes, people were still using it

Cape Talk's Clarence Ford chats to Primedia's Digital Content Editor, Barbara Friedman.

Listen to their conversation in the audio clip below [skip to 6:50]

Remember this sound?

Beeee-dee-dee-deee—ksshhhhh—WHREEEEeee-eee-eee—bloop bloop—KRRRSHHHHH—screeeeeeeeeee-chhhhhh—boooop… boooop…

"Does that bring back nostalgia of a good sort, or does it fill you with absolute irritation or horror? That is the sound that we all know so well, those of us who are of a certain age, that was our dial-up audio….it used to drop the line and then you would have to do it again and sometimes sit there doing it multiple times...well, that was originally the AOL dial-up sound."

- Barbara Friedman, Digital Content Editor - Primedia

A quiet but historic goodbye to one of the internet’s earliest gateways.

That's how the shutdown of AOL's dial-up internet service has been described.

After more than three decades of that iconic screechy connection sound, the company announced that dial-up access, including its AOL Dialer software and AOL Shield browser, will be discontinued on 30 September 2025.

While AOL’s more modern services, like AOL Mail and its media platforms, remain active, this marks the end of a defining chapter in internet history.

Though largely outdated, dial-up has remained a lifeline in some remote areas where broadband access is limited. 

"You might be wondering, who cares? Because we haven't been using dial-up for a very long time...Well, believe it or not, according to data in 2022 and 2023, there were still something like 200,000 people in the US who were using dial-up. I didn't even know that that was a thing!"

- Barbara Friedman, Digital Content Editor – Primedia

Scroll up to listen to the full conversation