Telstra to end dial-up services in December

The familiar screeching of the dial-up modem that was the recognisable sound of the internet at the turn of the century will soon be silenced, with Telstra announcing that it will officially end the dial-up era for its customers in December 2015.

The announcement came from the company's fixed broadband and bundles director Stuart Bird on Telstra's Exchange blog on Friday.

"With the expanded availability of ADSL/ADSL2/VDSL, cable, fibre, wireless, and satellite broadband solutions, including over the National Broadband Network, and the continued decline in the use of dial up, we have decided to retire dial-up internet services for the small number of our consumer customers who still have them. These services will be retired by December 2015," he said.

Bird said that Telstra would begin contacting the last remaining dial-up customers to switch over in the next few months.

Telstra told ZDNet that there are a few hundred retail dial-up customers with Telstra.

A small number of business customers will have until next year to switch over, ZDNet understands.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, there were still 159,000 users accessing the internet via dial up as of the end of 2014, and dial up represented 1.3 percent of all Australian fixed internet connections, compared to 46 percent back in June 2006.

Dodo and iiNet still offer dial-up services, but TPG already ceased offering dial up earlier this year.

Telstra is also planning to shut down its 2G mobile network at the end of 2015.