AOL is a rotten peice of garbage and always has been, I have dealt with people in support several years ago who had all kinds of problems with thier proxy servers. Why? Because AOL wants to keep you within the AOL environment, so actual internet connections they have suck, because they refuse to spend money on speed. This goes along with websites you see "AOL users click here," because AOL insists on reinventing the wheel for minimal bandwidth (like turning graphics into .ART inferior images instead of .JPG, this is done via the proxy for your viewing torture), along with basically destroying any hopes of a normal web browsing life. AOLs proxy server destroys almost any chance of logging into a website painlessly, again this is one I know from experience thanks to thier proxy scheme.
Money is spent on obtaining new customers, thier own support is making barely more than minimum wage. They charge the most for services yet provide the worst of it, on top of thier popup ad schemata, but as a company they were once a hot investment because of the way they treated people who fell for thier plot.
Last time I saw AOL Broadband it was 144kbit, barely faster than dual channel ISDN, the slowest broadband you could possibly sell. If its still 144 that would make my own RCN cable connection more than 30 times faster, and no screwy proxy servers or PPPoE garbage to slow that down any further either.
Your probably going to tell me how no other sites have any issues etc, I haven't had anything really odd go on here, but bandwidth costs money and nobody is getting charged for being a member here. Steve Case is leaving AOL next month, although I doubt anyone is going to fix anything, the company is projected to get worse with his departure.
Ways to be successfull in business:
* Treat your customers like crap
* Provide poor service, but make it look flashy
* Charge lots, deliver little
* Pay your own employees nothing, half of them should volunteer
I would use a modem before I'd support AOL again.
Good luck