The News:
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. As a result, on September 30, 2025 this service and the associated software, the AOL Dialer software and AOL Shield browser, which are optimized for older operating systems and dial-up internet connections, will be discontinued. This change will not affect any other benefits in your AOL plan, which you can access any time on your AOL plan dashboard. To manage or cancel your account, visit MyAccount.

For more information or if you have questions about your account, call: U.S. – 1-888-265-5555 – Canada – 1-888-265-4357

According To Research:
In the US, around 163,000 households still relied on dial-up internet as their primary internet service in 2023, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. This represents a small fraction of the overall internet usage, with AOL recently announcing the discontinuation of their dial-up service. While dial-up is a relic of the past for many, it persists in some areas, particularly where broadband or other internet options are unavailable or too expensive.

KPM Thoughts: Before I toss together my editorial rumblings, I should admit that I Googled the phrase “how many households still use dial-up services” and the above what was they presented. Truth be told, I’ve not had dial-up for decades and I remember when I was able to switch from that to a DSL line that a company I worked for at the time was paying for. I wasn’t going to argue with having faster Internet in my apartment that would find me still able to use the phone. I liked talking on the phone a lot more back then but that has definitely changed. Back then your Internet time was a lot more restrictive as you were tying up the phone line in the house to use it. I remember that I always used it later at night when the folks were locked into programs or maybe even in bed. Like I said, different times and its quite likely that many of you reading our words never had to deal with this option. So the 163K households is a surprise but that means perhaps 3x that in terms of actual end users. If there is no means of broadband access in these parts I can’t imagine that the mobile devices would be all that reliable. Hopefully companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple and the rest can figure something out so these regions can access faster Internet. They should be able to doom scroll just like the rest of us.