Report: AOL Weighs Free Content for Broadband

Time Warner(TWX Quote) reportedly might cut thousands of marketing and customer-service jobs by making a lot more of its America Online content free to the public.

The plan by AOL Chief Executive Jonathan Miller calls for AOL to stop charging fees to people who already have high-speed Internet service or dial-up service from another provider, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter. People with AOL's dial-up service would continue to pay their monthly fees of as much as $25.90, the paper says, adding that one-third of AOL's 18.6 million customers already have high-speed access. It would knock down what remains of the so-called walled garden that once separated AOL from the rest of the Internet. An AOL spokesperson couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

AOL's plans jibe with its strategy of transforming itself into a portal like Yahoo!(YHOO Quote) or Microsoft's(MSFT Quote) MSN. The company has been taking content that had only been available to subscribers and putting in on its free AOL.com site. ...