"Their CDs are all over the post offices, PC magazines."
Make sure you do not enter into a binding agreement with AOL over the phone. They tell you, and you agree to certain terms, and then they charge you as if you had agreed to different terms.
I hope this fraudulent (yes, I can make this statement as I right now am fighting them for charges over two years ago; have also all documentation. They even agree with me) company gets investigated by every state's attorney general.
I've been using AOL for 10 years. I've been in 37 states and 14 countries on business. They are the only ISP provider that I know of where you can use local telephone numbers on a national and international basis.