AOL Pulls the Plug on Dial-Up and Cleveland Reflects on the Local Man Who Made It Iconic with "You've Got Mail"

CLEVELAND 13 (WCTU) — After more than three decades of connecting Americans to the internet, AOL will permanently shut down its dial-up service on September 30, 2025. With that decision, the sound of the modem handshake, a mechanical symphony of beeps, hisses, and static that once meant possibility, will vanish into history. The shutdown not only marks the end of a technology that helped define the dawn of the digital age, but also reopens a chapter in Cleveland’s own story, one tied to the unmistakable voice that told the world, “You’ve got mail.”

That voice belonged to Elwood Hughes Edwards Jr., a longtime broadcaster, voice actor, and Cleveland 13 News Advisory Board member, who died on November 5, 2024, one day shy of his 75th birthday.

The Man Behind the Phrase

Born November 6, 1949, in Glen Burnie, Maryland, Edwards grew up in North Carolina and began his broadcasting career in radio at just 15 years old. By the late 1960s, he was working in television, not just behind a microphone but also behind the scenes, operating cameras, running graphics, and occasionally reporting or doing weather.

In 1989, fate intervened in a way neither he nor the world could have predicted. Edwards’s wife, then an employee of online service Q-Link, overheard CEO Steve Case talking about adding a voice to the company’s interface. She recommended her husband, who recorded the now-famous lines, “Welcome,” “You’ve got mail,” “You’ve got pictures,” “You’ve got voicemail,” “File’s done,” and “Goodbye,” in their living room on a simple cassette recorder. He was paid $200 for the job.

When Q-Link evolved into America Online, Edwards’s recordings became the soundtrack of the internet’s earliest mass adoption. By the mid-1990s, AOL had over 10 million subscribers. Millions of people first learned they had an email waiting because of Edwards’s warm, direct delivery. His voice appeared in pop culture, from The Simpsons to the marketing of the 1998 film You’ve Got Mail.

Edwards retired from WKYC in Cleveland in 2016 but continued connecting with people, sometimes literally, as an Uber driver, where passengers delighted in hearing their driver’s claim to fame. In 2019, his AOL story was featured on the podcast Twenty Thousand Hertz. Even in his later years, he embraced new platforms, appearing in a 2022 Shopify ad announcing “You’ve got sales.”

A Legacy Tied to Cleveland

When Cleveland 13 News began building its newsroom, Edwards quickly accepted an invitation to join the station’s Advisory Board. His experience, perspective, and the enduring cultural power of his voice brought a unique depth to the group.

Matt Greminger, President of Cleveland 13 News, reflected on Edwards’s passing and the timing of AOL’s announcement:

"AOL was our first taste of what was possible. For many of us, especially those who came of age with a dial tone in our ears, that bar kept getting higher and higher. We grew with it, and so did El Edwards. El was more than a member of the Cleveland 13 News Advisory Board. He was the voice of a generation. When we were just building our newsroom from scratch, he jumped at the chance to join us. He brought not just his experience but the voice that made every American lean forward when they heard, ‘You’ve got mail.’ Out of respect, we have kept his biography on our Cleveland 13 website. It is a small tribute to the work he did for this industry and to the way his voice connected people, not just to the web, but to each other. No one over 30 would struggle to remember it. It is seared into our memories, a sound that marks the moment the world began to embrace the idea of being truly, globally connected. Those first digital building blocks became the foundation for something bigger and more life-changing than generations of innovators could have imagined. While we all knew dial-up was on its way out, its retirement is not a loss. It is proof of how far we have come. Connections are faster now, and that is beautiful. Time is the one thing we never get more of, and El’s life is a reminder of that. He passed away last year, but not before living every day knowing that, even in a seemingly small way, he made a massive impact on the entire world. Today, as we say goodbye to AOL dial-up, we also honor El Edwards. He was a pioneer whose voice will never fade, and a friend whose impact will never be forgotten."

The End of an Era

Though AOL’s dial-up service is now used by fewer than 160,000 Americans, many in rural or Tribal areas without affordable broadband, it remains a touchstone for the internet’s earliest days. AOL’s history is intertwined with the rise of digital culture, including the 2000 merger with Time Warner, the meteoric rise and collapse of the dot-com bubble, and the shift from landline modems to always-on broadband.

The end of dial-up is both a technical milestone and a cultural one. It is the retirement of the internet’s training wheels, the tools that taught the world how to connect. For Cleveland 13 News, it is also a chance to reflect on the life of a man whose voice guided millions into that new world, a reminder that progress is built on the work, and sometimes the voices, of those who came before.

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