A few years ago, Earthlink and AOL faced the same problem: how to convert themselves from dial-up providers to profitable players in the broadband space. AOL, after a half decade of drunken pinwheeling, finally decided they'd just become Yahoo. Earthlink decided they'd try their luck as a broadband provider, something that wasn't made easy with the elimination of mandatory line sharing and the lost brand X battle.

Earthlink started exploring non-incumbent routes to customers. They began investing in broadband over powerlines, working with Covad to offer line-powered voice and offering municipal Wi-Fi. So how are things working out financially? Not particularly well, according to the company's latest earnings report. They posted a quarter loss of $24.8 million, compared to the profit of $29.2 million they posted a year earlier.

Interestingly, though, this quarter was the first time they made more money from broadband (1.88 million customers) than narrowband (3.3 million customers), and they showed a 35% jump in broadband revenue. The majority of the losses were due to marketing for their Helio MVNO, their joint venture with SK Telecom. The company didn't itemize profit or subscribers to their muni-Fi deployments. Despite some potential, investors still aren't holding their breath.