# Verizon is buying AOL for $4.4 billion



## Robert (May 12, 2015)

http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/12/8590543/verizon-aol-acquisition

Thoughts?


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## tdale (May 12, 2015)

AOL died when everyone started buying up broadband. Sure, I still sign on aim. I think if i got a message saying AOL was closing down i don't think I or a lot of people would care. Especially with Social Media these days Facebook, Twitter, and others.


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## Munzy (May 12, 2015)

https://www.enjen.net/asn-blocklist/index.php?asn=1668&type=iplist

This might have something to do with it....


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## drmike (May 12, 2015)

Let me help... AOL supposedly has 2.5 million customers (assumed to still be on dialup).  Unsure where you even buy such from them these days.

Oh wait - it's the last feature in this stack of insanity they are selling to folks.. so much value add  hahaha  http://discover.aol.com/join-aol

Sure AOL has 5 million IPv4 addresses.  That's worth oh $50 million~.

Ever heard of: Crunchbase, Cambio, Engadget, Games.com, Huffington Post, Moviefone, Techcrunch?  

Yes, AOL owns all of those.

See: http://discover.aol.com/brands

Verizon spending $44 billion for AOL????  That's Verizon for you.  Dumb and dumber.  This is a company with antique land line customers all over, DSL, etc. that it refuses to even tend to.  Meanwhile it's out buying dialup company with media property acquisitions as their life raft (mostly if not all acquired).

Verizon thinks it is a wireless content company - or will soon.  Damn shame watching these old school monopolies reformulate their BS.


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## devonblzx (May 12, 2015)

I don't think AOL has many dial-up customers anymore, but people still pay (mostly the older generation) for the AOL service.  I don't mean aol.com or AIM, I mean the actual desktop program that we used back in the mid 90s.

It includes email, browser, the AOL keywords and everything else in the all-in-one application.  I believe they charge about $10/month for it and I'm sure a lot of people are still happy to pay it because they don't like change, it is simple to use, and AOL offers technical support and other benefits for paid customers which is probably a big plus for people who aren't tech savvy.

I don't know about AOL long term being worth $4.4 billion but maybe Verizon can see a benefit to integrating AOL with their current services.

* Correction, looks like they have varying plans from $6.99 to $27.99: http://discover.aol.com/join-aol


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## RLT (May 12, 2015)

Folks might be surprised how many areas of USA has no broadband. Maybe satellite is available but with all of the caps and weather line of sight limits its a joke.


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## mojeda (May 12, 2015)

drmike said:


> ...
> 
> Ever heard of: Crunchbase, Cambio, Engadget, Games.com, Huffington Post, Moviefone, Techcrunch?
> 
> ...


Don't forget what Verizon tried to do: http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/2/7324063/verizon-kills-off-sugarstring

http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/28/7086791/verizon-is-scared-of-the-truth


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## drmike (May 12, 2015)

mojeda said:


> Don't forget what Verizon tried to do: http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/2/7324063/verizon-kills-off-sugarstring
> 
> http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/28/7086791/verizon-is-scared-of-the-truth


They shuttered their own project for talking about net surveillance.  Bahahaha.  

Censorship, the staple diet of  mass corporate state.  May they choke on it.



RLT said:


> Folks might be surprised how many areas of USA has no broadband. Maybe satellite is available but with all of the caps and weather line of sight limits its a joke.


Even in population centers the broadband options suck.  It's a duopoly in most of the bigger places.  You have the telco's rusted and falling lines or cables often crumbling old patchwork.  Two options isn't choice, especially where those two companies often work together and cross promote.

Unsure where other companies went and how so much consolidation happened.  It's very bad and long term going to be much worse.

You get outside of high population densities and there may not even be one high speed option.  I've seen projects developed for rural counties using stimulus funds.  Even when this was made available the number of people that actually subscribed was laughably low.

Reality is plenty of people just don't want the internet and the alternative reality.  Unsure how much of it is being cheap, behind the times or just inherently getting some church sermon on the evil manufactured and disguised as progress via technology.

If you move out to said places and care about internet, you are going to pay for a T1, make do with 4G or deal with satellite and those puny usage caps.  In some ways I continue to see the lack of ROI for 80% of the country in say the US for broadband.  Whole fast internet isn't enabling much other than siphoning of money out of rural hands in most instances.  It hasn't delivered on local or regional economic development.  Getting an Amazon fulfillment center with minimum-wage-like jobs isn't rebuilding the economies such models destroyed (plus they eat up tax dole outs).

Progress? Meh, I beg to differ and have been the biggest cheerleader for broadband and tech since before most folks around here were born.

I am looking forward to Verizon dumping landlines and everything and the shit storm they are going to cause themselves in the process.


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## MannDude (May 12, 2015)

RLT said:


> Folks might be surprised how many areas of USA has no broadband. Maybe satellite is available but with all of the caps and weather line of sight limits its a joke.


This.

I have fiber internet at home, but not even ten miles away outside of town it's pretty rural. You may have to drive through creeks to get to people's houses (assuming the water is low enough to pass) and travel poorly maintained gravel roads. A buddy of mine lives out in the sticks, and as far as I know his family's house still uses 56K. He's since moved away but I do not believe cable or DSL is available to them, and satellite internet is too expensive and limited to be practical.


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## raindog308 (May 12, 2015)

RLT said:


> Folks might be surprised how many areas of USA has no broadband. Maybe satellite is available but with all of the caps and weather line of sight limits its a joke.


If you count Alaska there are many areas of the US that have no electricity  :lol:


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## drmike (May 13, 2015)

raindog308 said:


> If you count Alaska there are many areas of the US that have no electricity  :lol:



There is rural land in almost every state in the US where electric is not available or cost prohibitive.

Even more places that lack public water and public sewer.

Me, I could do without it all and eventually will get off the grid.


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## Onra Host (May 14, 2015)

drmike said:


> Verizon thinks it is a wireless content company - or will soon.  Damn shame watching these old school monopolies reformulate their BS.



If you owned Verizon yo wouldn't be complaining at all


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## drmike (May 14, 2015)

Onra Host said:


> If you owned Verizon yo wouldn't be complaining at all


Public traded company, so you never know   Oh wait I don't hold stock shares of anything and got out of that racket a long time ago.

VZ has a lot of pain forthcoming.  First they need to buy their partner out of the wireless brand.  

Then they need to get regulator approval for the landline sell off.

Since they remain the gateway to the net, bundling content and other deck loading of their customers will be done and slapped hard and quick for.

VZ is a very conflicted aging hulk.


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## qps (May 16, 2015)

drmike said:


> First they need to buy their partner out of the wireless brand.


Already done.

http://www.verizon.com/about/news/verizon-completes-acquisition-vodafones-45-percent-indirect-interest-verizon-wireless


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## drmike (May 17, 2015)

qps said:


> Already done.
> 
> http://www.verizon.com/about/news/verizon-completes-acquisition-vodafones-45-percent-indirect-interest-verizon-wireless



I was that busy to have missed a $130 billion deal in February.   Quite scary how little coverage and wide chatter there was with this deal.  That's a GIGANTIC deal.

On that note, clear VZ is dumping old wirelines and going wireless + content play.

I feel for folks in the Verizon landline regions.  This is going to get ugly.   Saw there are data caps now supposedly with FIOS and DSL packages, perhaps loosely under their terms, but real ceilings.


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## TurnkeyInternet (May 18, 2015)

dialup is a very profitable business if you aquire existing clients (i.e. ones that dont need to be setup with the heavy up front support time/costs).  But I doubt that was verizon's play - they need content to compete with cable content that will be more and more delivered over cable internet lines free vs pay to use verizon's cell or home internet.


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## bullfrog3459 (May 18, 2015)

drmike said:


> I was that busy to have missed a $130 billion deal in February.   Quite scary how little coverage and wide chatter there was with this deal.  That's a GIGANTIC deal.
> 
> On that note, clear VZ is dumping old wirelines and going wireless + content play.
> 
> I feel for folks in the Verizon landline regions.  This is going to get ugly.   Saw there are data caps now supposedly with FIOS and DSL packages, perhaps loosely under their terms, but real ceilings.


This was in 2014 drmike. Not this year.

And I agree with the rural aspects here. Coming from a rural FttH provider the options a mile outside of most major markets is dial-up still. AT&T, CenturyLink, and others have failed to provide rural with broadband as determined by the FCC, and instead invested all of that money they received as incentive and paid out bonuses and upgraded large metro areas.


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