AOL’s dial-up internet service is shutting down Tuesday, ending one of the web’s first mainstream access points. Signing into the service — a process accompanied by a noisy, garbled series of computerized tones that sounded like a drowning robot — became a rite of passage. But as broadband internet became more accessible — and as a host of more sophisticated web browsers came on the scene — AOL began shedding users. A fair number of internet users — especially in rural or remote areas where broadband Internet is not available or is too expensive — also still rely on dial-up: as many as 163,000, according to recent U.S. Census data. CNBC reported that only a few thousand AOL users were paying for dial-up access.