Harry,
Good observation, sell off the in-house infrastructure expertise necessary to enable world-class, mission-critical internet access and then turn around and offer world-class, mission-critical internet access without any in-house infrastructure expertise.
A while back I believe I came across a posting/article where most businesses much prefer to stay as local as possible when buying internet access. They want round-the-clock, on-demand, immediate, on-site (when necessary) support. They prefer to deal with specialists, too, not generalists.
One would think AOL has its hands full trying to attend to its consumer clients. Thus, I'm led to speculate, "What's up with that"?
Marginally Plausible Explanation #1: AOL's day vs. evening usage of its leased bandwidth is becoming so skewed toward the latter that they simply must do something to spread the costs. In other words, their average evening usage is growing rapidly, which, as they've stated in the past, costs them.
Marginally Plausible Explanation #2: AOL sees a not too distant fall-off in retail client growth and needs another engine to tap, just in case.
Either (or neither) way, $21.95, starts in 2 days -- in advance please... |
