Kicker: Goodbye to dial-up

Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above.

SOUND: [AOL dial-up screech, connect tone]

NICK EICHER, HOST: It was to the internet what the model T was to the automobile. Slow, but it changed everything. And at the end of it the tedious process. Quite the rush.

AUDIO: You’ve got mail!

Yep, after more than 30 years of connecting people— and doing it at the breakneck speed of 56 kilobits per second! AOL is pulling the plug on dial-up.

The last day: September 30th.

Back in the 1990s, AOL had 10 million customers. Today it’s a little over 150-thousand. So the end of an era.

And here’s the speed leap: from dialup to gigabit fiber is 20-thousand times faster.

SOUND: [Modem tones]

Bye-bye, dial-up. You’ve got nostalgia.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

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