AOL ready to be split up: report

Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 05 August 2008 12:58

IT Industry - Strategy

EarthLink CEO Rolla Huff was recently quoted by the Wall Street Journal as describing the AOL access business as "worth aggressively pursuing," but it isn't obvious that anyone else would be interested. With ADSL, cable and wireless access widely available, dial-up is pretty much a legacy business in most areas.

Still, if anyone can squeeze a buck out of AOL's dial-up business, EarthLink probably could. Absorbing those AOL customers would more than triple EarthLink's user base, so EarthLink could choose to shed a decent proportion of customers that turn out to be unprofitable and still keep the critical mass needed to continue to profitably ride the trailing edge of Internet access for several more years.