The shrill is gone: AOL to shut down dial-up internet

Washington: The ear piercing beeps, squeals and buzzes of 90s era dial up internet will vanish from thousands of holdout American homes in September a...

Washington: The ear-piercing beeps, squeals and buzzes of 90s-era dial-up internet will vanish from thousands of holdout American homes in September as historic provider AOL shuts down the service.

The raucous sounds of modems establishing their connection to distant servers marked a generation of internet users and still pop up in memes to this day.

It also made AOL one of the biggest tech firms of the era, but in the following decades the dial-up connections were steadily replaced with much faster ADSL and then fibre-optic lines.

"AOL routinely evaluates its products and services and has decided to discontinue dial-up internet," the pioneering internet service provider (ISP) said in a blog post.

AOL did not say how many users would be affected by the September 30 shutoff.