America Online and Time Warner have announced a deal that allows
an ISP in the US, EarthLink, to offer its service on Time Warner’s
broadband cable network. The move is a concession by AOL and Time
Warner in their continuing attempt to win regulatory approval for
their proposed merger.
Postponing the merger’s intended completion by a number of
weeks, a joint statement said: “The Companies expect to close their
merger by the end of the year or the very early days of 2001.”
Previously the companies had insisted that the deal would be
done not later than 21st December.
The US Federal Trade Commission is reviewing the merger and the
review period has been extended for two weeks beyond November 30th.
One concern of the FTC was that excluding AOL’s rivals from Time
Warner’s cable network would be anti-competitive. The deal with
EarthLink, which has 4.6 million subscribers, should ease that
concern.
