LONDON Carphone Warehouse Group PLC said Wednesday it agreed to buy Time Warner Inc.'s British AOL business for 370 million pounds (US$688 million; €548.1 million) in cash to become the third-largest provider of broadband services in the U.K.

The London-based company will acquire AOL's Internet customer base in the U.K. as well as the supporting management and infrastructure. AOL will provide co-branded portal, content and other audience services.

The acquisition will give Carphone Warehouse an additional 2 million customers and the company said it will probably boost pretax profit by 10 million pounds (US$18.6 million; €14.8 million) this year.

Carphone Warehouse will pay 250 million pounds (US$465.5 million; €370.4 million) on completion of the deal and the balance in three installments over the following 18 months, the company said in a statement. It will fund the purchase through the extension of existing debt facilities.

Completion of the deal is subject to European Union regulators and will probably take place by the end of the year.

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forwardone Wrote:LONDON Carphone Warehouse Group PLC said Wednesday it agreed to buy Time Warner Inc.'s British AOL business for 370 million pounds (US$688 million; €548.1 million) in cash to become the third-largest provider of broadband services in the U.K.

I don't know much about the online world in the UK, is AOL hated there as much as it is in North America for the fact most of their users are what one would call, ummm less that savvy?

When I bought my computer AOL was one of the alternatives which was already `implanted` on it. That being the case, and me not being too `puter savvy at that time, I decided to use them as my IP.

BIG MISTAKE! I came to realize after a time that AOL like to take control of your online activity. I had to contact their live support so often about the same problems. What really annoyed me was that every time they`d tell me to do the same thing to rectify the problem, even though I made it clear that this was the umpteenth time I`d had that fault and had to get it sorted out. They just seemed to take control over which sites I could view, and which I couldn`t particularly banking type sites.

No, I`d definitely not recommend AOL to anyone else. I dumped them after a couple of months, though in fairness I did get my first 2 or 3 months free so it didn`t cost me money, just my patience.

forwardone Wrote:When I bought my computer AOL was one of the alternatives which was already `implanted` on it. That being the case, and me not being too `puter savvy at that time, I decided to use them as my IP.

BIG MISTAKE! I came to realize after a time that AOL like to take control of your online activity. I had to contact their live support so often about the same problems. What really annoyed me was that every time they`d tell me to do the same thing to rectify the problem, even though I made it clear that this was the umpteenth time I`d had that fault and had to get it sorted out. They just seemed to take control over which sites I could view, and which I couldn`t particularly banking type sites.

No, I`d definitely not recommend AOL to anyone else. I dumped them after a couple of months, though in fairness I did get my first 2 or 3 months free so it didn`t cost me money, just my patience.

Ok so you're saying they are exactly the same.. hahaha....