I don't think you can base their current earnings on their previous efforts, not in this industry anyways. There's several reasons why you have little basis for this, but most importantly is this:
Technology changes. The internet changes. It has changed a lot in the past decade, you know that. What was the internet like 20 years ago? More importantly how large was the market for people who would A) have devices that could access it at hotspots, such as starbucks? B) feel a requirement or desire to pay to use such services?
You'll notice that the casual users have entered into both those markets, but you also have to remember that this has only really happened in the past decade.
On top of that in the first 15 years of their run internet was both more costly and slower. Even as recently as 2000, statistics show, that 74% of US households still ran dial-up, 56k, internet.
Nearly everything they serve is becoming less expensive to them and more powerful. Stronger wavelengths are being freed up to send their services along. Stronger access to "the web" is becoming more and more available. Couple that, the fact that it costs less for them to provide the service, with a hugely expanded market, and you'll see why you shouldn't make assumptions on their current earnings based on the first 15 years. The industry went through massive shifts in recent years. Plus, they knew they had problems before, that's why their changing their corporate strategies so heavily. They're trying to fix up a few weaknesses.
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