The nation’s biggest wireless operator sees its digital future in a company that still offers dial-up Internet service.

However backward that may seem, Verizon Communications’ $4.4 billion all-cash deal for AOL, announced on Tuesday, illustrates how the communications industry has changed — even if the underlying rationale has not — from the days when the Internet pioneer told users “You’ve got mail.”

AOL may be known for its dot-com rise and fall and for current web content like The Huffington Post, but Verizon is looking to gain the company’s powerful but little-known mobile video and advertising technology.

That could make Verizon’s own phone and Internet offerings more appealing to consumers, and to advertisers.