AOL is officially ending its dial-up service after 34 years. How much were users paying for the internet via phone line service with the iconic beep-boop-screeching sound?
According to an announcement last Friday, AOL said it its dial-up service would be discontinued on Sept. 30. For those curious about how much it cost for a paltry 0.056 megabits per second (compared to today’s standard of 500 Mbps) we looked into the cost of AOL dial-up.
How much are AOL users paying for dial-up?
At this point, even signing up for AOL dial-up is tricky, and there’s not much information about how to get it. According to AOL’s dial-up page, the necessary software for their dial-up service to function is only available for Windows Desktop. For an “optimal browsing experience,” AOL recommends installing the AOL Dialer, which connects the AOL network and your computer, and the AOL Shield Browser, which is optimized for older operating systems.
The AOL Dialer requires users to purchase an AOL Advantage Plan. Trying to find the cost of the Advantage Plan on the AOL website is a fruitless series of rabbit holes that eventually takes you to a page offering various bundles for customer support and identity theft services, ranging from $11.99 to $16.99 a month.
However, internet comparison site Allconnect says the AOL Advantage Plan costs $9.99 a month. An old CNET article from 2006 (via the Wayback Machine) said AOL increased the cost of its dial-up plan to $25.90 per month in a effort to push customers to its DSL plan, which cost the same at that time. So it looks like the cost came way down as dial-up customers dwindled. According to 2022 US Census data (via Ars Technica) around 175,000 households in the U.S. still used dial-up.
AOL dial-up is dead, but dial-up lives on elsewhere
AOL dial-up might be dead, but there are still providers offering internet through phone lines. For some people in the rural U.S., dial up or WiFi hotspots are the most viable options because of the high cost of an internet subscription or connectivity dead zones. The same Allconnect story lists the pricing for several different dial-up providers. NetZero offers 10 free monthly hours of dial-up, and then charges $11.95 per month. Earthlink’s dial-up plan is $9.95 a month for the first three months then $24.95 a month after that.
Compared to the current costs of fiber optic internet plans which range from $50 to $250 a month, these prices are a steal. But you pay for what you get. So the real cost is a frustratingly slow browsing experience.
