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May 4, 2006

AOL High Speed--Powered by Clearwire

By Glenn Fleishman

The name of the service, the headline on this article, tells the whole story: AOL may be be part of a giant conglomerate that owns a cable service, which gives it an edge in having alternative methods to dial-up by which to offer Internet service and its own mash-up of email, newsgroups, and news sites to consumers. However, Roadrunner has a finite reach, and just as EarthLink must diversify into the fourth approach (after phone, cable, and powerline), so, too, must AOL.

The Clearwire-powered AOL broadband wireless offering will launch in Dayton Beach and Jacksonville, Florida, and Stockton and Modesto in California, The Seattle Times reports. This is a reseller arrangement rather than new wireless rollouts. The AOL/Clearwire package will cost as little as $25.90, the same as AOL’s unlimited dial-up service.

Clearwire’s speed isn’t up to DSL/cable rates, or even bidirectionally as fast as most of the paid metro-scale Wi-Fi plans or deployments. But it’s still a high multiple of dial-up, and it frees up a phone line or allows a second line to be cancelled.

Posted by Glennf at May 4, 2006 12:32 PM

Categories: deals, launch plans

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