By KRISTI E. SWARTZ

EarthLink invested for years in potential replacements for its once-thriving dial-up Internet business: a mobile phone service aimed at teens, citywide wireless high-speed Internet and broadband that runs over utility power lines.

None of them worked.

Plagued by an eroding customer base, EarthLink has managed to stay afloat — and even turn a profit in the first quarter after losing $135 million in 2007 — by slashing its work force in half and abandoning two failed ventures. Now, it's crunch time. CEO Rolla Huff is banking the company's future on the very thing that has caused trouble in the first place: dial-up.

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