My bad. I meant to say "a company which offers cable internet access to a large part of the United States as part of its primary business" (Time Warner is a cable tv provider, primarily). This is important because then AOL could offer ALL its customers cable access at reasonable rates. Currently, the two companies are still operating as two distinct companies and neither the cable nor the aol customers are benefiting from the merger. I am convinced that AOL will fold within the next few years.
Rather than merge with Time Warner, AOL might have done better to make deals with many cable internet providers across the country where the cost of AOL and the cable internet connection together could be made more reasonable. No one I know who has a cable connection has AOL; no one I know who has AOL has a cable connection. I believe this situation (where people have either cable access or AOL but not both) is common country-wide and highly doubt this situation will change; yet one thing is sure to change: people will soon be dumping dial-up for cable by the thousands. If the statement I made two sentences ago can be generalized to the entire population (and there is no reason why I would think otherwise) then AOL is in BIG TROUBLE. Unless, of course, it comes up with an ingenious plan to make their product indispensible and hard to live without. This is not an impossible task but will take a genius on the level of Bill Gates to pull it off, I think (Microsoft has quite a few years before most people become tech savvy and more likely to choose between operating systems....nowa days, people just take whatever operating system comes with their computers and that is very good news for Mr. Gates). AOL is done, as far as I can see. Please note that I am not up to date on what AOL offers its customers so my discussion here may be a bit out-dated (though I doubt it)