AOL is pushing the nation to broadband by decreasing the gap between broadband AOL and regular AOL by $15/month. This seems like the biggest and last key tipping point toward US broadband. Dialup AOL will stay the same price. They expect to make up the subscriber fee losses in increased advertising revenue. This will be a tricky transition, but if successful, we could be watching Warner content over the web. TV sales and ad sales could indeed make this a good idea.

In the mean time, AOL is about to give millions of people $180/year. According to WSJ:

Of AOL's 18.6 million domestic subscribers, about six million get their Internet access from a high-speed provider ... AOL would let subscribers with a high-speed connection keep their AOL account free.

Between the Bill Gates foreign policy and the AOL fiscal policy, private America is stealing a march on the Federal Government.

AOL will increase advertising? I bet they'll need to go to broadband to accomplish that.

Except TimeWarner really only covers about 1/8 of the current AOL subscriber base, even though it covers 25-30% of all of the homes in the US.

That leaves quite a significant portion of just AOL subscribers that have no chance at all to get "almost free broadband".

That also means that they're not going to be "giving $180/year" to 6 million people, they'll only be giving it to maybe 1 million, if that. The 6 million AOL users that get their Internet access from Broadband a) aren't all in TWC territory, and b) are mostly DSL subscribers.

I'm all for the broadband-ification of the US, but this is barely even a baby-step in that direction. Until ISPs and cable companies find a better way to make money (with a-la-carte channel selections, etc, instead of ludicrously high all-in-one subscriber fees), I'll be sticking with my Over-The-Air HD, broadcast basic analog cable, and dialup internet.

They'll get free AOL in any case. That's $15 less than their paying now if they already have broadband.

As a RoadRunner customer, I'm actually one who will "benefit" from this.

AOL free? That means they'll have to cut the price by another $10 a month for subscribers to get whay they're paying for.

They'll get free AOL in any case. That's $15 less than their (sic) paying now if they already have broadband.

Not necessarily.

DSL broadband is only about $22/month for a basic 1.5M/768k connection. If you signed up for AOL's promotion that they've been running since the SuperBowl, then it's only an additional $3.90/month for AOL service.

So, if someone is paying $25.90/month now, for Broadband and AOL, how is a $35/month TWC/AOL package (no price has been set yet, but they said "between the $23.90 AOL charges premium dial-up customers and the $44.95 that Time Warner Cable charges high speed data subscribers.) a $15 savings?

Anyone with the linked broadband/AOL package now, regardless of their ISP, is only paying around 4 bucks a month for service. That's "giving people" $48/year, not $180/year.

For those that already have broadband, and don't have any use for AOL (because, honestly, once you already have a separate ISP, it's just an e-mail client with a little bit of "exclusive" content), there's no incentive, savings, or advantage to this program.

A lot of the math and facts just don't add up to the earth-shattering broadband revolution that you're making it out to be.

Giving up a couple billion a year in subscriber revenue is news. Especially when it's voluntary. Sorry I missed the excitement of the $15->$4 special. I agree that AOL is a mature product with very little to offer new subscribers. Mostly what it offers old subscribers is to not lose their email address and backlog of email. The writing has been on the wall for some time with SBC-Yahoo DSL among other similar offerings. Case epitomized the dial-up ey'rea and now AOL is heralding its close.