AOL Broadband was a UK

internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privat ...

and part of the

TalkTalk Group TalkTalk Telecom Group plc (commonly known as TalkTalk Group, trading as TalkTalk) is a company which provides pay television and Internet access services to businesses and consumers in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 2003 as a subsidiary ...

History

The

Carphone Warehouse The Carphone Warehouse Limited was a mobile phone retailer based in London, United Kingdom. In August 2014 the company became a subsidiary of Currys plc (previously named "Dixons Carphone"), which was formed by the merger of its former parent Ca ...

announced that it would purchase the UK business of AOL on 10 October 2006 for £370m, making it the third largest broadband provider, with over 2 million customers, and the largest LLU Operator with more than 150,000 LLU customers. The acquisition process completed on 9 December 2006. A press release stated that AOL UK ''Audience'' business will remain a separate organization and brand with a ''revenue sharing agreement''. The AOL UK ''Access'' business (broadband) was changed to AOL Broadband. The deal included an agreement to continue customers access to the AOL portal content. AOL began consulting on job cuts in 2006.

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

reported that the company expected to cut a total of 500 UK jobs by Christmas. In line with legal requirements, AOL UK (now AOL Broadband) notified the DTI that redundancies are planned. The

Press Gazette ''Press Gazette'', formerly known as ''UK Press Gazette'' (UKPG), is a British media trade magazine dedicated to journalism and the press. First published in 1965, it had a circulation of about 2,500, before becoming online-only in 2013. Publis ...

stated "The company has informed the DTI that it is possible that it will make more than 100 redundancies". On 1 November 2006, it was made public that Karen Thompson, AOL UK CEO and President AOL Europe, had resigned and had been succeeded by Carlo d'Asaro Biondo (previously CEO of AOL France). Thompson was part of the team responsible for launching AOL UK in 1996. It was made public on 14 December 2006 that Carlo d'Asaro Biondo had resigned after six weeks in his new role. Philip Rowley (the chairman of AOL Europe) has taken over on a temporary basis. The Guardian states: ''the management turmoil has put the European operation in "freefall" and created a "massive vacuum", according to one AOL insider.'' The same article estimates that 5,000 AOL jobs are to go worldwide (25% of staff) with a significant number from AOL UK. In January 2007 AOL UK was rebranded as AOL Broadband. In an early press statement, The Carphone Warehouse stated they had "no plans to change the service in any way at all," but, since January, all those who used P2P applications heavily had their downstream bandwidth limited to 50 kbit/s during peak times (18:00–24:00, Sunday to Thursday). During the third quarter of 2007, AOL Broadband caused a stir by offering a free laptop computer (and eventually a free PlayStation 3) to all new customers signing up for a 24-month contract with its AOL Broadband Wireless Plus broadband package. While skeptics looked for a catch, industry experts conceded that the offer was reasonable, despite the necessity to sign up to an AOL Talk home phone package in order to be eligible for the free laptop. While an option to not take a bundled home phone package was available, the price increased by £10; further offers include a free

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generati ...

PlayStation 3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on November 11, 2006, in Japan, November ...

and Wii in addition to other promotional items. Services are provided by

under the AOL Broadband brand. In April 2013 AOL Broadband was 'rated worst for broadband problems' by

Which? ''Which?'' is a United Kingdom brand name that promotes informed consumer choice in the purchase of goods and services by testing products, highlighting inferior products or services, raising awareness of consumer rights and offering independe ...

Magazine. By April 2014, AOL Broadband was no longer available for new customers. Potential new customers are directed to the TalkTalk website for broadband packages.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Aol Broadband TalkTalk Group Former internet service providers of the United Kingdom AOL