TIL AOL Dial up is still a thing.
AOL to discontinue dial-up internet service after 34 years
Submitted 2 months ago by Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.techspot.com/news/109012-aol-discontinue-dial-up-internet-service-after-34.html
Comments
Colonel_Panic_@eviltoast.org 2 months ago
black_flag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
End of an era
MCasq_qsaCJ_234@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
Meanwhile, MSN Dial-Up still exists for some reason, you could say it’s the COBOL of Microsoft.
Spacehooks@reddthat.com 2 months ago
Imagine how much it sucks for the person that is using dial up. Like we know they had zero alternatives.
TuffNutzes@lemmy.world 2 months ago
What year is it?!
BagOfHeavyStones@piefed.social 2 months ago
+++ATH
darkdemize@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Goodbye.
youngalfred@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
stoly@lemmy.world 2 months ago
AOL was founded in 1983 and dial-up would have been the only way to access it. These dates are suspect.
Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
Per your own link: they started as game delivery service called Control Video Corp and later became an AppleLink service called Quantum Link. They became AOL in 89 when they separated from Apple and offered internet modem pools starting in 91.
stoly@lemmy.world 2 months ago
oh dear, I just skimmed for the founding date.
manxu@piefed.social 2 months ago
Man, AOL is so anachronistic, I thought for sure they had just misspelled AOC and was wondering why she had offered dial-up internet service in the first place.
serenissi@lemmy.world 2 months ago
does dial up work over 4/5G voice call? I tested over voip and it doesn’t due to distortions in analog signal (maybe some optimization?).
shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
To be honest, I’m surprised it lasted this long.
Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Funny thing is dialup has been non viable for ~15 years if not more where I live. When you can get 100 mbit fibre for like $5 a month and it costs a whopping $12.5 dollars a month for a 1000 mbit fibre line, it makes no economic sense to offer dialup.
black_flag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
Where the fuck do you get fiber for $12/month?? Not in the US I assume.
roofuskit@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The are large portions on the US where there’s dialup or satellite only.
atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
I read like 10 years ago that a small but still double digit percentage of their income still came from dial-up subscribers many of whom didn’t still use the service. It was speculated at the time that many of these people simply didn’t realize they were still paying for it. I’m guessing they all finally died or credit card numbers changed enough that it wasn’t free money for them anymore.
givesomefucks@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Every rural house gets a phone line, just like they all get roads and mail
It’s not profitable, but that didn’t matter because it was a utility
With Broadband, it’s a “luxury” so to get it out to a clump of rural users, they all need to pay for it, or wait and hope someone else pays to get it closer.
BD89@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
The government gave them $400 Billion dollars to do it and they pocketed the money.
huffpost.com/…/the-book-of-broken-promis_b_583939…
shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
Not anymore. Now the cell phone company just puts up a tower and runs one fiber line to it and everybody has high speed internet or a rich billionaire launches some satellites into space on his rockets.
Laying one fiber line to a cell phone tower is much cheaper than laying a bunch of fiber lines to each individual household.
moseschrute@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
That’s like Netflix discontinuing their dvd service only a few years ago