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Technology Stocks : America On-Line (AOL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RTev who wrote (5707)	2/24/1999 6:02:00 PM
From: RetiredNow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 41369

Hey RTEv, how do you like your ADSL? Is it conistently fast? Or do you notice a slowdown around 3p.m.? I am about to switch to ADSL and was wondering if the slowdown around 3p.m that I currently experience would go away with a dedicated line to my local Bell's Central Office. It's really amazing how slow it is at 3p.m. I think everyone is checking the stock market or something.

To: RTev who wrote (5707)	2/24/1999 6:03:00 PM
From: RocketMan	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 41369

As to why folks would want to pay for AOL as a value-added service. I think you have to separate AOL as an ISP and AOL as a content provider. Perhaps sometime in the future they might even split out those two services, for all we know. Anyway, AOL as an ISP is no different than any other ISP, although if recent reviews are to be believed they are better than most as far as speed and accessibility (narrowband, that is). Once someone connects with AOL, they can ignore any of the AOL content if that is their wish, and go straight to the web either using the AOL browser, IE, or Netscape. As an ISP, AOL's competition is strictly price -- and they fought many battles over this in the last few years, and were counted as dead until they went through their infamous all you can eat phase, busy signals, etc. If I were with AOL, I would now be concerned about the free ISPs that are ad-based, although I have my suspicions about that model once they get enough subs that they have to worry about a robust network. As a content provider, AOL has an edge, as proven by their huge subscriber base. They are still growing very aggressively, and appeal not to the tech-saavy but to the much larger audience of new and semi-new internet users. As these users get more sophisticated, they tend to stay with AOL because by then they have an email address, are used to the AOL layout, etc. Whether they will be able to keep this edge, I don't know, but until someone else comes out with a killer ap (which broadband would be more likely to do), I suspect AOL will still be the gorilla. I am not a user of AOL content, prefering to use a straight feed into the internet (I use earthlink). However, my entire family uses it, is comfortable with it, and when I do look through AOL's content it is quite good, although this is a personal preference. Just some thoughts.