Charter Communications Inc. on Monday announced agreements with Level 3 Communications Inc. and Sprint to help the cable company provide local and long-distance phone service in select markets.

„These agreements enable Charter to significantly increase telephony deployments in each of our divisions during 2005,“ Tom Cullen, Charter executive vice president of advanced services and business development, said in a press release.

Charter also has selected Accenture to provide provisioning services that offer cost reductions over other back-office systems, according to Cullen.

Charter, the St. Louis-based cable TV and high-speed Internet provider, listed more than 31,000 phone customers at the end of the second quarter. The company plans to introduce phone service in additional markets this year and in early 2005.