After more than a decade connecting more Americans to the Internet than any other company, AOL has slipped to No. 3 largest Internet provider in the United States, The New York Times reported on Thursday.

AT&T has become the largest Internet provider, with 12.9 million customers, as of the end of March. Comcast is second with 12.1 million, while AOL has 12 million subscribers, said the report.

While the cable and phone companies are still expanding their Internet businesses briskly, AOL is shrinking.

In the first quarter, AOL lost 1.18 million subscribers in the United States. Still, that reduction was more modest than analysts had expected.

The report said AOl's change was mainly due to its own strategic shift.

The former largest Internet provider's traditional model had been eroded by the shift to high-speed Internet service from cable and telephone companies. But it decided last year to chase advertising dollars by offering nearly all of its content and features free.

The company said on Wednesday that the strategy was working. AOL's new free e-mail and other Internet services have attracted eight million registered users since their introduction last August. About half are former customers of AOL's Internet access service.

Source: Xinhua