Who recalls the following?
BEEEEEP. SCREEEECH. BEEBONG-BEEBONG.

That’s the sound of AOL dial-up internet — a sound etched into the memory of the 1990s. For most Americans, it’s a punchline from another era. But AOL’s decision to shut down its dial-up service on September 30 is more than a quirky tech obituary. It’s another reminder of how the rural-urban divide plays out — in Colorado and across the nation.

In the Rural Reckoning series, Colorado Politics documented the widening gap between rural Colorado and the urban Front Range — a gap that extends far beyond broadband access. Colorado’s 53 rural counties contribute enormously to the state’s agriculture, energy production, outdoor recreation, and tourism. Yet the political influence, funding, and policy decisions remain concentrated in the 11 Front Range counties, leaving rural communities with less voice, fewer resources, and unaddressed problems that threaten their future.

For much of urban Colorado, AOL’s shutdown is quaint nostalgia. But it’s also a symptom of the deeper divide. Across rural America — and in pockets of Colorado — cell service still drops out, broadband lines never came, and DSL connections fail for days at a time. While dial-up may not have been widely used here in recent years, the fact that over 160,000 Americans nationwide still rely on it underscores how far rural infrastructure lags behind. That digital gap mirrors the same inequities Rural Reckoning found in healthcare, transportation, and political representation: the further you get from the I-25 corridor, the more fragile the connection — both literal and figurative — to the systems the rest of the state takes for granted.

In his introduction to the project, Vince Bzdek of the Gazette summarized the findings: documenting the expanding gap between what rural areas contribute to the state through agriculture, energy production, tourism and outdoor recreation, and the attention, money and support they receive” from the state’s political and economic power base along the Front Range.

Led by editor Thelma Grimes, the reporting team — including Marianne Goodland, Marissa Ventrelli, Michael Braithwaite, David O. Williams, Hap Fry, Rachael Wright, and others — combined extensive interviews, data analysis, and community voices to capture both the economic and cultural dimensions of the rural-urban divide.

The Gap

That gap shows up in nearly every aspect of rural life:

• Healthcare in crisis — Rural hospitals are teetering on the edge of collapse.
• Infrastructure decay — Roads and highways crumble while funds flow to urban transit projects.
• Energy transition risks — Coal miners, ranchers, and oil field workers face economic extinction in the shift to renewables.
• Agriculture under pressure — Farmers and ranchers, the backbone of Colorado’s largest industry, feel their political clout slipping away.
• Policy disconnect — From wolf reintroduction to land use regulation, rural residents see decisions made without real engagement from those most affected.

When state or federal agencies assume “everyone can just go online,” rural residents — especially older Coloradans — are shut out. That lost access isn’t just an inconvenience; it compounds the costs of rural life in ways urban residents rarely see:

• Paying hundreds a month for patchwork internet that still drops during storms.
• Losing work when a connection fails.
• Driving hours for appointments that telehealth could handle — if the internet worked.
• Watching kids struggle to complete homework over a weak hotspot.

The end of AOL dial-up is not the end of rural connectivity in Colorado — but it is a symbol. It’s a small piece of a larger story: a state where the political and economic power base is concentrated in urban centers, while the rural backbone that feeds, powers, and sustains Colorado is left with fragile systems and fading access.

When that last modem falls silent on September 30, most of the country won’t notice. The real question is whether Colorado will recognize the broader warning in time to bridge the divide.

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