Dial-Up Internet May Be History, but It Still Conditions Our Current Internet Experience

Dial-Up Internet May Be History, but It Still Conditions Our Current Internet Experience

This week’s announcement that AOL will be discontinuing its dial-up internet access service on September 30 triggered a bout of nostalgia in me—an internet dinosaur who first dialed up to ARPANET in 1980. Most of today’s internet users have never experienced the electronic cacophony as modems performed their ritual handshake, or viewed online interaction as a timebound—and time-rationed—session, competing with voice calling demands. But much of …