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AOL Dumping Some Broadband

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the this-is-a-bit-strange dept.

unsupported writes "Just days after news that AOL will be breaking up into 4 business units, AOL is telling existing broadband customers in 9 Southern states to find a new carrier. This news comes after AOL stopped selling broadband services earlier this year. AOL plans a similar phase out of existing broadband customers for the rest of the country over the next year."

14 of 275 comments (clear)

  1. No surprise... by inkdesign · · Score: 5, Interesting

    AOL has been losing customers like crazy - in this case, they just have an alternate reason to leave!

    1. Re:No surprise... by calibanDNS · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The real surprise here is that according to the article AOL is telling customers to switch to BellSouth's FastAccess DSL service. I would really expect them to promote Time Warner's RoadRunner service since it's still a part of AOL/Time Warner. Perhaps such bad decisions like this are a part of the reason that AOL is losing customers?

    2. Re:No surprise... by calibanDNS · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I can't speak for all areas, but I live in Winston-Salem, NC and I have RoadRunner (and it's available across most of the state I believe). Also, my parents live in Greenville, SC and have RoadRunner as well, as do many of my friends across SC.

      Can anyone else vouch for the other states listed?

    3. Re:No surprise... by mordors9 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      From what I remember though, AOL and the Time Warner people don't get along very well. There was a perception by Time Warner that they ended up buying a pig in a poke when they bought AOL.

    4. Re:No surprise... by div_2n · · Score: 2, Interesting

      As another poster mentioned, RoadRunner is not available in all areas. Adelphia has a big presence in some areas as well as Insight. Bellsouth is near Ubiquitous with the exceptions of Alltel and a few smaller co-ops.

      As to the why--those of you that ever tried to deal with Bellsouth alread know. They are an enormous PITA to deal with, have the nasty habit of quoting you one price over the phone and totally different (read higher) when you get the quote on paper/e-mail and are generally extremely hostile to competition. They price their competitors such that they would have to make razor thin margins on service to compete.

      That, I suspect, is the reason why. Bellsouth has effectively priced them out of the market. Since Bellsouth is so big, I wouldn't be surprised if they are the sole reason for exiting the market. Of course, they may have experienced the same thing from other ILECs.

  2. Coasters by Moby+Cock · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Do you think that the people getting dumped will also receive CDs offering 3 months free dial-up with AOL? I'd be pissed.

  3. What about Time Warner by 1000101 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This doesn't make much sense to me. Doesn't the Time Warner half want to push hi-bandwidth content through to its AOL subscribers? It's much more difficult to do this via 56k. I really don't know much about the merger other than it's not doing so well. But it seems like the two sides aren't really talking.

  4. Glad I sold my AOL stock! by museumpeace · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The reason [aside from the fact that they suck and really amount to traveling the information super highway with training wheels dragging] we dropped our AOL subscription was their incessant advertising to get us to upgrade to aol broadband which they have never delivered in my area. Broadband did become available [some neighborhoods get DSL, we have comcast cable internet pretty much throughout my metro area]. Bottom line: Broadband is killing AOL in my part of New England. If Aol is dumping broadband, its going to hurt them badly in the long run. Even if BB service is costly for them to set up...everybody else [e.g. comcast] raises their rates and gets away with it...breaking even later is better than having no customers.

    --
    SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
  5. Switch? by Rufus88 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So, this means AOL customers might have to switch to RoadRunner?

  6. Re:I don't get it by Feynman · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I would think they would be getting rid of dial up connections, not the broadband.

    From the article:

    Most of AOL's 23 million subscribers receive standard dialup service for $24 a month.

    Why would they get rid of most of their customers? Undoubtedly, this is a decision based on the ROI. Sure, their revenues per subscriber might be higher for broadband, but dial-up may have a higher profit per subscriber.

  7. Re:AOL by stratjakt · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Because selling the content as an add-on to existing broadband services (Comcast, Verizon DSL, etc) is more lucrative than running their own native ISP.

    Sounds like a smart move to me.

    --
    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
  8. Let me get this straight: by acoustix · · Score: 4, Interesting

    -AOL buys Netscape (possibly to cash-in on the lawsuit against Microsoft)
    -AOL buys Nullsoft (maybe AOL wants their own branded media player)
    -AOL signs contract with Microsoft to use IE browser (instead of using Netscape's browser that they paid 4.2 billion for)
    -AOL lays off Netscape crew, but decides to fund Mozilla
    -AOL is shutting down Nullsoft
    -AOL is getting out of the broadband ISP business.

    Has AOL done anything good in the last few years? What the hell was Time Warner thinking?

    -Nick

    --
    "A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
  9. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  10. Find a new carrier? by zakezuke · · Score: 2, Interesting

    When I think about early broadband access, I think about how it was nice to have an account on a smaller ISP. But then without any warning at all they get gobbled up by a bigger ISP. Sometimes they went under and sold their customers to EarthLink for example, other times they got an offer they couldn't refuse. While this was frustrating, you at the very least didn't typically notice any downtime.

    Why wouldn't AOL sell off their unwanted customer base to someone else?

    --
    There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.