By Michael J. Martinez
Associated Press

• I’m thinking of canceling my land-line phone service and using my cell phone as my only phone. How do I go about it? Are there any drawbacks?

• An increasing number of cellular phone customers are dropping traditional phone service and relying on cell phones alone. According to the technology think tank Gartner Inc., up to 10 percent of the nation’s 170 million cell phone customers have given up their land lines.

The savings, of course, can vary from person to person, from $20 for basic phone customers to up to $100 or more for people who use a great deal of long distance.

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Associated Press

In remote regions of Alaska, where hooking classrooms to the Internet via satellite can easily cost tens of thousands of dollars a month, cash-strapped school districts have come to depend on a federal program that has suddenly suspended funding.

E-Rate, overseen by the Federal Communications Commission, reimburses schools for Internet service, wiring and some equipment, getting proceeds from surcharges on long-distance phone bills.

Without it, its advocates say, rural or poorer schools would have limited access to the online world, if at all.

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New York Times Full Feed via NewsEdge Corporation :

MCI and Qwest Communications International reported large losses in the third quarter driven by a continued decline in revenue and one-time write-offs.

But the companies said that the long slide in phone prices might be slowing in some parts of their businesses and that they were making progress cutting costs.

MCI, a long-distance provider based in Ashburn, Va., lost $3.4 billion, or $10.65 a share, in the quarter, after losing $55 million a year earlier in its former status as WorldCom. MCI took a $3.5 billion pretax loss in the quarter after reassessing the value of its networks.

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ATLANTA, /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ BellSouth Corporation (NYSE: BLS — News) announced today it is offering $2 billion aggregate principal amount of three-year floating rate, and eight and 30-year fixed rate senior notes to be issued pursuant to the company’s shelf registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Proceeds from the sale of the notes will complete the long-term debt that BellSouth expects to raise to refinance its portion of the purchase price for Cingular’s acquisition of AT&T Wireless. JP Morgan, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs will be acting as Bookrunners.

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