The screeching lizard sound is finally dead. Honestly, most people probably thought it died when Shrek was still in theaters, but the truth is a lot weirder. AOL only just pulled the plug on its dial-up internet service a few months ago, specifically on September 30, 2025.
It feels like finding out a silent film star was actually still alive in a nursing home somewhere until last Tuesday.
For those of us who grew up in the 90s, that "handshake" sound—the chaotic symphony of beeps and static—was the sound of the future. You had to beg your mom to stay off the phone for twenty minutes so you could download a single low-res photo of a Foo Fighters concert. If someone called your house? Boom. Disconnected. Total heartbreak.
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Why AOL shutting down dial up actually took this long
You’re probably asking: who on earth was still using this?
It wasn’t just nostalgic hipsters trying to live like it’s 1996. According to U.S. Census data from 2023, about 163,000 households were still relying on dial-up as their only way to get online. By the time the official shutdown hit in late 2025, that number had dwindled into the "low thousands," but those users were dedicated. Or, more likely, they were stuck.
Most of these people live in deep rural pockets of the country. Places where "broadband" is a word they only see in magazines. When fiber doesn't reach your ranch and the trees are too thick for a reliable satellite signal, that copper phone line is your only lifeline to the world.
AOL—now owned by Yahoo (which is owned by Apollo Global Management)—finally decided the juice wasn't worth the squeeze. They cited a "routine evaluation" of their products. Basically, maintaining the infrastructure for a few thousand people paying maybe $10 to $20 a month doesn't make sense when you're trying to pivot to AI and high-end ad tech.
The shutdown didn't just kill the connection; it killed the tools. The AOL Dialer software and the AOL Shield browser were officially retired alongside the service. They were designed to work on ancient operating systems that modern Chrome or Firefox wouldn't even touch.
The weird economics of the 56k modem
Back in the day, AOL was a titan. In 2000, they were worth $125 billion. They were the ones mailing out those literal millions of "1,000 Hours Free!" CDs that everyone used as coasters.
At its peak, dial-up offered a theoretical speed of 56 Kbps. To put that in perspective, a basic 5G connection today can hit 20 Gbps. You're looking at something nearly 400,000 times faster. Trying to load a modern, ad-heavy news site on a 56k modem in 2025 would likely take long enough for you to go make a sandwich, eat it, and realize you're still only 10% through the header image.
But for the holdouts, it was cheap. Toward the end, AOL Advantage plans were reportedly hovering around $9.99 to $14.99 a month for some legacy users. Compare that to a $100 Starlink bill or a $70 Comcast plan, and you can see why someone on a fixed income might just keep the old modem humming.
Is dial-up completely extinct now?
Surprisingly, no. AOL shutting down dial up doesn't mean the technology is gone from the face of the earth. It just means the biggest player left the building.
Companies like NetZero and Juno are still kicking around. They still offer dial-up plans for those who literally have no other choice. NetZero even has a "free" tier that gives you 10 hours a month, provided you're okay with your computer feeling like it's wading through wet cement.
There are also niche uses for modems that have nothing to do with browsing Reddit:
- Legacy Faxing: Believe it or not, some medical and legal offices still live and die by the fax machine.
- BBS Culture: There’s a tiny, dedicated community of people who run Bulletin Board Systems—the precursor to the modern web.
- Point-of-Sale: Some very old credit card terminals in remote gas stations still dial out to verify a transaction.
What happened to the "You've Got Mail" accounts?
If you're worried about your old @aol.com email address that you haven't checked since the Bush administration, don't sweat it. The email service isn't going anywhere. Yahoo still runs AOL Mail as a free web-based service.
The shutdown only affects the connection method. If you have high-speed internet from someone else, you can still log in and see those 4,300 unread newsletters from 2004.
Moving forward: Life after the screech
If you were one of the few actually impacted by this, or if you're helping a relative who was, the "what next" is actually kind of urgent. You can't just plug the phone line back in and hope for the best.
- Check for 5G Home Internet: T-Mobile and Verizon have been aggressively pushing 5G boxes into rural areas. If you get even a decent cell signal, this is 100x better than dial-up and usually costs about $50.
- Starlink: It's expensive upfront (the dish is a few hundred bucks), but it's the gold standard for people who live in the middle of nowhere.
- The Lifeline Program: Since the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) lapsed, the federal Lifeline program is the main way to get a $9.25 monthly discount on phone or internet if you're low-income. It’s not much, but it helps.
- Local Libraries: If you're stuck without a provider, libraries remain the primary "hub" for free high-speed access. Many even lend out mobile hotspots now.
The era of the "analog handshake" is officially in the history books. We traded the iconic noise for silent, invisible speed, and while the nostalgia is fun, nobody actually wants to wait six minutes for a GIF to load ever again.