AOL is ending dial-up service, after 34 years!

From “You’ve Got Mail” to “Sex and the City,” AOL’s internet was a mainstay in 1990s pop culture and engrained in Americans’ lives, especially for the tones, beeps and screeches it regularly provided. And the company regularly flooded people’s mailboxes with CDs offering free trials to access the internet.

But similar to dial-up internet, AOL is also a shell of itself. The brand’s popular internet messaging service, AIM, was shut down in 2017 and AOL itself has gone through many parent companies.

It once merged with CNN’s former owner, Time Warner, in a famously disastrous acquisition. It is now owned by a private equity firm, which also owns Yahoo.

AOL, formerly known as America Online, didn’t immediately respond to comment.

Oh no!

We're going to lose hundreds of Dataloungers!

[quote] However, about 160,000 people connect to the internet through their landline telephone service, data from the 2023 US Census shows.

That’s insane. Who are these people?

Nooooooooooo!!!!!

R3 rural people without broadband access.

Sad.

R3 There are still people who lease their telephones from AT+T. Just pay it every month. Over $20. For a landline telephone.

AOL chatrooms were the best. I used to spend hours a day in them. Still miss them today.

R7, Who on earth does that?? You can buy a landline telephone for $10. Do they think it’s still 1965?

[quote]That’s insane. Who are these people?

[quote]rural people without broadband access.

Yeah it is people who just don't really know any better. Starlink would be more expensive, but the experience/speed would be night and day.

They have to know what Starlink is of course, and then how to set it up. I assume Starlink requires an app, so they would need a smart phone as well.

R7 R9 My mother is one of those people. Even though she's got a mobile phone, I cannot talk her into ditching her landline despite explaining that the monthly line rental costs are colossal. I've tried.

She isn't even a technophobe. She has wifi, an iPhone and an iPad, but for some reason she's really stuck in her ways with her landline phone. I guess she's had one all her life and doesn't like the idea of giving it up.

The most frustrating part is that it isn't even a true landline anymore, as she's got fibre internet, so the landline phone goes into the back of the router and is essentially VOIP. But she got to keep the landline number she's had for 40 years and it acts exactly the same way as her old true landline phone, so she's happy.

Should have done a poll to see how many DLers this will affect.

Seriously, the email account I use for my DL account is an @aol.com.

Those chat rooms were fantastic. The number of hook ups from there………

The landline people are the only ones who will have phone service, when the grid goes down.

Isn’t dial up how Muriel connects DL to the interwebz from the server in rural Iowa?

I still use AOL mail. Millions of people still use it.

I like to think of it as like having a Datsun 240Z.

Dial up is DEAD to US!

[quote] Those chat rooms were fantastic. The number of hook ups from there………

They were great. The local ones were like shooting fish in a barrel.

Almost as good as Craigslist about 5 years later....that truly was an unending vein of constantly horny men looking for a hookup.

Oh god, how’s half this site going to have access?

datalounge is finished

The users on dial-up are the ones who start news threads on a subject a broadband user posted several hours earlier.

They’re still posting about SnackWells and shoulder pads….

[quote]I guess she's had one all her life and doesn't like the idea of giving it up.

My parents still have a landline (VOIP through Comcast), and I don't really blame them. The cell reception is never that great where they live (they live in a suburb of a major city, but also in a valley - no one gets good cell service on that street).

I still have a landline. And lots of pencils for dialing the rotary phone.

[quote] Seriously, the email account I use for my DL account is an @aol.com.

But that's not going away....I don't think?

Just the dial up access.

Speaking of dinosaurs, is Plenty 'o Fish still around?

I learned from AOL hookups that men are largely lying about their photos and other stats and so have never used a dating/hookup app. Thanks, AOL!!

I learned the truth at 17.

No child was harmed. Just enlightened a bit too early.

What will happen to all the discs to start up the service? Do they have a decorative purpose? Can they be recycled?

Janet loves dialup because its hey day was hers.

This is for you, R25!!

[quote] Elwood Edwards, voice of the 'You've got mail' AOL email greeting, dies at 74

Elwood Edwards, who voiced America Online’s ever-present “You’ve got mail” greeting, has died. He was 74.

He died Tuesday (November 8, 2024) at his home in New Bern, North Carolina, said his daughter Heather Edwards. The cause was complications from a stroke late last year, she said.

Edwards taped his AOL greeting in 1989 into a recorder while sitting in the living room of his home. “You’ve got mail” became a pop culture catchphrase in the late 1990s and served as the title of the 1998 Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan film.

“He would still blush anytime someone brought it up,” his daughter said. “He loved the attention, but he never got used to it.”

He was also the voice of AOL’s “Welcome,” “Goodbye” and “File’s done” messages. He made $200 from the recordings.

He got the gig while working at an independent TV station in Washington, D.C. His second wife, Karen, was a customer service representative for the internet provider that later became known as AOL. She heard the company was looking for someone to be the voice of its software and suggested her husband.

“They were so impressed, they didn’t have him go in a recording booth,” his daughter said.

While few people knew his face, his voice was heard by millions of people each day.

“For a while, America Online was keeping it a secret, making me a man of mystery. But finally it was released, and there you go,” Edwards said in 1999.

He did appear on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” in 2015 to repeat the famous catchphrase, smiling broadly and chuckling as the studio audience cheered. He also added his voice to an episode of “The Simpsons” in 2000.

Edwards first worked in radio and then moved into television. He had a brief stint as a weatherman and worked as an announcer, but mostly he spent his time behind the camera, Heather Edwards said.

“He would say, ‘I have a face for radio,’” she said, adding that her dad “always had a ready smile anytime you’d see him.”

He later worked at WKYC-TV in Cleveland as a “graphics guru, camera operator, and general jack-of-all-trades,” the station said. Edwards also did freelance voice-over work for radio and television commercials.

Survivors include another daughter, Sallie Edwards; granddaughter Abbie Edwards; and a brother, Bill.

I thought it stopped 20 years ago.

The voice behind "You've Got Mail!"

Elwood looked a bit like Wilford Brimley.

R37, did he also have the diabeetus?

Word on the street AIM will be gone by Thanksgiving.

We'll lose half of Datalounge..

M4MNOWNYC and M4MNOWNYC2

R33 For all they put into that clip, how could they forget that the login cadence was “Welcome!” and then “You’ve Got Mail” (if you had any).