AOL Suffers More Ignominy

AOL, once, then AOL|7 now Primus-AOL, the ISP industry’s whipping boy has again found itself subsumed by another corporate owner.

You have to be thankful you don’t work for the marketing department or the advertising agency for AOL in Australia, the outfit has more identities than most in it’s relatively short but troubled life in Australia.
Not that there is anything wrong with being owned by Primus, just we’re getting a little tired of the regular re-branding. ANd since nobody seems to be able to make this business work in Australia you have to wonder why they keep sticking to the AOL brand.

The latest chapter, involving Primus Telecom, sees the ISP offering cut price phone and Internet plans under the brand Primus-AOL. The new broadband offering stats at $29.95 a month for 200MB at 256Kbps. The 512Kbps plan with 300MB is $49.95.

Primus Telecom General Manager, Product Management, Development and Strategy, Campbell Sallabank said a range of ‘no more to pay’ plans including 512Kbps at $69.95 a month, and 1.5Mbps plan at $99.95 each have 1,000MB of data at full speed. Sallabank said Primus-AOL will operate as a separate business with its own identity with most back-office functions and all network operations integrated to achieve maximum cost savings and improved customer service.

Primus Telecom is Australia’s fourth largest fixed-line telecommunications carrier with approximately 850,000 retail customers including over 500,000 Internet services. Primus operates its own fibre network in the five major capital cities, delivering a range of business direct-connect services including ISDN, ATM and Broadband DSL.