AOL was the king of dial-up connectivity, and with a captive audience of millions, was set to dominate broadband; also to compete with Google and Microsoft as the premiere Internet portal and webmail provider. Instead they're quickly becoming irrelevant as they face a slow subscriber drain and a series of deep self-inflicted wounds.

In September of 2002, in an interview with the Washington Post, AOL Broadband President Lisa A. Hook called broadband "a side issue" and proudly declared that narrowband was "going to be around forever". Lisa Hook however won't be; she was fired this week, along with 700 AOL employees from their Virginia Headquarters in just the latest effort to right a capsizing ship.

In December of 2002, AOL CEO Jonathan Miller admitted the company had "missed the first wave of broadband" but would be correcting their course immediately. With much fanfare, his strategy for AOL's survival was unveiled among hushed whispers to investors and analysts.

Miller's plan was to wall off AOL as an exclusive provider of content so spectacular, that like a circus freak tent, strangers would pay handsomely (on top of the cost of a broadband connection) to gawk in amazement at the wonder of bearded ladies and lizard children.

As part of that plan, AOL this year stopped providing (reselling) the broadband pipe themselves to new customers. They instead opted to become a BYOA (bring your own access) carrier, charging customers $15 on top of their existing broadband costs for an AOL e-mail client and perhaps the occasional Sugar Ray concert (we kid, but we're not far off).

Existing Broadband subscribers have been in limbo, but today the company informed millions of them in 9 Southern States they've got until January to find a new Internet service provider. The remainder of broadband users will be phased out over the next year as AOL shifts toward pure content. All of that broadband business is being nudged toward the bells, with the hope some will return for the Sugar Ray.

The problem is even faithful AOL users are starting to wonder what they're paying for. AOL customers like this one in our forums are reading about Bit Torrent. Their broadband ISP's offer parental controls, broadband portals and content, anti-virus software, pop-up blockers, and a bevy of other services. AOL has in fact made themselves irrelevant, and is discovering multi-million dollar ad campaigns can't cure what ails them.

In their most recent earnings report, AOL announced they'd lost 2 million customers in the last year alone. Parent company Time Warner has been forced to tuck away half a billion dollars to deal with ongoing investigations into AOL's accounting practices. Jonathan Miller this week announced they'd be firing 700 employees and executives, and once again revamping the entire AOL operation.

A few years ago we joked that the AOL ship "appears to be piloted by a retarded test monkey on barbituates and not guided by any form of business savvy rationale."

The monkey has jumped overboard.