AOL broadband will continue to operate as a separate brand for the foreseeable future, its owner TalkTalk has confirmed.

TalkTalk acquired AOL in December 2006 and has since gone on to bolster its subscriber base with the purchase of Tiscali – in so doing becoming the UK’s largest consumer broadband provider by customer numbers with 4.1 million subscribers.

Tiscali, which was beset by complaints relating to under-investment in infrastructure and customer support, prior to the takeover, has since been folded into the TalkTalk brand.

However, at a press event yesterday Neil McArthur, Chairman of TalkTalk Technology, said no such plans are in place for AOL, which was perceived significantly more positively by its customer base.

Instead, TalkTalk is continuing to upgrade AOL subscribers to faster packages offering a broadband speed of up to 8Mb for no extra charge. AOL's headline, top broadband speed was 2Mb.

He said: “A large proportion of AOL’s customer base had been with the provider since the days of dial-up and they’d had their first experience of the internet with them back then.

“Instead of doing away with the brand we want to keep it to reassure those customers that their web experience will be of the same standard.”