- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
After decades of connecting Americans to its online service and the Internet through telephone lines, AOL recently announced it is finally shutting down its dial-up modem service on September 30, 2025. The announcement marks the end of a technology that served as the primary gateway to the World Wide Web for millions of users throughout the 1990s and early 2000s.
Ok, the only country in Europe currently still using dial up is Croatia, the rest of Europe has shutdown those services years ago. Telephone wires have been used for aDSL since the early 2000s and stil used for vDSL but dial up?
Again, Europe is far more densely populated than the US. The EU’s population density is 106/km², the US is 37. The least dense country is Finland with 16/km², but they’re a rich country with not a large population so it’s not surprising for them to not have dial up. Runner up is Sweden with 24 but they are yet again a rich country. For context, there are 10 states in the US that have a smaller population density than Finland. Combine this with the US not having that good of public infrastructure because they mostly have private everything, I don’t find it surprising at all that Europe doesn’t have dial-up and the US does.