NEW YORK CITY, New York: AOL will officially shut down its dial-up internet service on September 30, marking the end of one of the earliest gateways to the web for millions of households.

The decision closes a chapter in online history that began in the 1990s, when the company’s beeps-and-buzzes connection sound became an iconic part of getting online.

In a notice on its support site, AOL said it “routinely evaluates its products and services” and has decided to discontinue dial-up internet and related software “optimized for older operating systems.”

At its peak, AOL, formerly America Online, dominated the market, introducing countless users to the World Wide Web. The service became famous not only for its connection noises but also for its quirks, such as losing your connection if someone picked up the landline phone, and for the flood of promotional CDs offering free trial hours.

While broadband and wireless eventually took over, dial-up never entirely vanished. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, about 163,401 U.S. households still used only dial-up to access the internet in 2023, representing just 0.13% of homes with internet subscriptions. AOL has long been the largest dial-up provider, but smaller ISPs still offer the service.

The decline of dial-up mirrors the disappearance of other internet relics. AOL shut down its Instant Messenger service in 2017, Microsoft retired Internet Explorer in 2022, and Skype was discontinued earlier this year. AOL’s “You’ve got mail” greeting, immortalized in the 1998 Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan film, remains a nostalgic hallmark for many.

Founded in 1985 as Quantum Computer Services, AOL rebranded, went public in 1991, and became a titan of the dot-com era, hitting a market value of nearly $164 billion in 2000. However, a troubled merger with Time Warner and subsequent ownership changes saw its fortunes fall. Verizon acquired AOL in 2015, when it still had 2.1 million dial-up users, but by the time Verizon sold AOL and Yahoo to a private equity firm in 2021, that figure was “in the low thousands,” according to a source cited by CNBC.

Today, AOL continues to operate its free email service and paid subscriptions, offering identity protection and tech support. But for the few remaining customers relying on its phone-line-based internet, the September cutoff will mean finding a new way online, and for the broader public, it’s a reminder of how far, and how fast, internet technology has evolved.