The Wall Street Journal (reg. required) this morning reports that Time Warner has "completed the internal work necessary" to separate their AOL dial-up unit from its advertising component, and is getting closer to selling one or both of the units. Given all the talk lately from Earthlink's CEO about how he wants Earthlink to be a specialist in acquiring dial-up operators, the likely fate of the dial-up component is pretty clear. The advertising portion has been made murky by the Microsoft/Yahoo fisticuffs, but the most likely scenario involves Yahoo acquiring AOL with Time Warner getting a minority stake.