Sprint Corp. reported a write-down of more than $1 billion, as it reported its third-quarter financial results on Tuesday. The nation’s third-largest long-distance provider, Sprint wrote down the value of that network, but at the same time it became evident that the value of its wireless network was improving.

The firm had announced Friday that it would cut 700 positions, as it begins to downplay its long-distance business. The net loss was $1.91 billion against a $497 million loss during the like period last year. Revenues were $6.9 billionup from $6.7 billion in last year’s quarter.



Sprint and the other major long-distance providersAT&T and MCI--have been under mounting pressure, as regulatory and legal developments have made it more difficult for the long-distance firms to compete with the former regional Bell operating companies (RBOCs.) On Monday, MCI said it would write down $3.5 billion to account for the lowered value of its long-distance network. AT&T had previously said it would take a $12.5 billion charge for its sinking consumer network.

With Sprint’s long-distance revenue in a remorseless drop for the past 15 quarters, the firm has been looking to its cell-phone business and its bundled services as a solution to its problems.

«Sprint Consumer Solutions reported 4 percent sequential growth [over the previous quarter] of revenues on strong wireless performance,» the firm stated. «Sprint Local Consumer Solutions reported a 1 percent sequential increase, and Sprint Business Solutions reported a 2 percent sequential decline, as lower wireline revenues were partially offset by growth in wireless.»

The firm reported strong DSL gains. Sprint also noted that the recent spate of hurricanes in its territory has a negative on both wireline and wireless segments.

«Our steady execution has led to consistent improvements in revenues, profitability, and cash generation, and we are on track to meet our net debt-reduction targets,» said Sprint chairman and chief executive officer Gary Forsee in a statement. «Our recent announcement to further align resources with customer demand will enable us to more fully leverage our portfolio of assets and capabilities, as we increasingly distinguish Sprint as a one-stop shop for services.»

Sprint Corp.’s Gary Forsee and 175 top managers interrupted a two-day strategy session last month to visit Incred-A-Bowl, a 40-lane ``family fun center’’ six miles from headquarters in Overland Park, Kansas. The group was celebrating a return to sales growth and a doubling of the stock price in the past 19 months.

The next day, Forsee, who joined the company as chief executive officer from BellSouth Corp. in March last year, told the executives it wasn’t good enough. Sprint isn’t measuring up to the competition when it comes to customer satisfaction, financial results and employee morale, he said.

``Do you want to be part of a team that’s average, or do you want to be on a team that’s best,’’ President Len Lauer said he told managers at the meeting. ``If that’s the case, then don’t feel good about the results we’ve put up over the last couple quarters,’’ he said in an interview Sept. 15.

The 54-year-old Forsee and Lauer, 47, are prodding executives to boost sales gains so Sprint can keep pace with competitors including Atlanta-based Cingular Wireless LLC and Comcast Corp., a Philadelphia-based cable company. Forsee, who today told a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. conference that the company will cut $1 billion in annual costs, said Sprint will need to go beyond shaving expenses.

``We can’t just live off of cost cutting,’’ said Forsee, who has reduced headcount by 11,000 since becoming chief executive in March 2003. ``We’ve got to be sure that we’ve got strategies that grow our business,’’ he said in an interview at Sprint’s 240-acre campus.

`Stem The Tide’

Since Forsee took over from William Esrey, 64, Sprint shares have almost doubled, outpacing a 32 percent increase by the Standard and Poor’s 500 Telecommunication Services Index. Sprint stock was unchanged at $20.34 at 2 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.

To underscore the difficulty of sustaining Sprint’s gains, Forsee arranged for UBS AG analyst John Hodulik to speak at the meeting about troubles in the industry. Hodulik told the group that the decline of long distance, Sprint’s second largest business, is its biggest challenge.

``There’s not a lot you can do to stem the tide,’’ Hodulik, who is based in New York, told the managers. The long-distance decline will not be fatal because of Sprint’s growing wireless operation, said Hodulik, who rates Sprint shares ``buy’’ and doesn’t own them.

Long-distance sales accounted for a quarter of Sprint’s $6.87 billion in revenue in the second quarter, down from about half five years ago. Sales in the unit fell 6.6 percent in the quarter as residential customers turned to local-phone companies, including New York-based Verizon Communications Inc., that now sell long- distance calling. Sprint has also been hurt by fierce competition over business customers with MCI Inc., based Ashburn, Virginia, and AT&T Corp. in Bedminster, New Jersey.

Wireless, Local

Mobile-phone services account for 53 percent of Sprint’s revenue, compared with 17 percent five years ago. Wireless sales were $3.61 billion in the latest quarter, up 17 percent. They will probably grow to almost two-thirds of Sprint’s revenue in 2008, Morgan Stanley analyst Simon Flannery estimates.

Sprint has 16.9 million mobile-phone users, compared with 40.4 million at Verizon Wireless. Cingular and Redmond, Washington-based AT&T Wireless Services Inc., which are merging, together have 46.7 million customers. Cingular is owned by San Antonio-based SBC Communications Inc. and Atlanta-based BellSouth.

`Biggest Challenge’

``The biggest challenge they face is making sure they have enough scale to compete,’’ said John Maxwell, an analyst at Waddell & Reed Financial Inc. in Overland Park, which had 689,000 Sprint shares in June among $35 billion in assets.

Comcast, the world’s biggest cable company, plans to offer digital phone service to almost all the 40 million households passed by its cables by the end of 2006.

Sprint will probably lose 35 percent of its 5.6 million consumer local-phone lines in the next 10 years to wireless and cable competitors, said Michael Fuller, who runs the operation. The local-calling unit accounts for 22 percent of Sprint’s sales and almost two-thirds of its operating income.

Forsee, who had spent 10 years at the company, came back to Sprint after four years at BellSouth. The quarter that Forsee joined, Sprint’s sales fell 4.5 percent. In the most recent period, they rose 6.3 percent, the highest among the top seven U.S. local- and long-distance providers.

He eliminated shares that tracked Sprint’s wireless unit and slashed borrowings, which, after subtracting cash, will be less than $13 billion by January, from $19 billion in 2002. Chief Financial Officer Robert Dellinger said the company, which has a workforce of 61,000, will exceed its previously stated goal of reducing annual costs by $1 billion before 2007.

`Opportunities’

Forsee, who says mergers and acquisitions are risky, is instead extending Sprint’s reach through partnerships. He struck agreements with six cable-television companies including Time Warner Inc. that are taking on the local carriers by selling phone service.

There are ``lots of opportunities for us to not just rely on M&A, which can be a very distracting scenario, and to rely on partnering to take advantage of our assets,’’ Forsee said.

Sprint is discussing agreements that would for the first time enable cable-TV companies to include mobile calling in their packages of offerings, Forsee said. An agreement isn’t likely to be reached until next year, he said today.

The company is one of several companies discussing an agreement with Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN that would enable the sports-TV network to sell a branded mobile-phone service, said John Garcia, head of wireless marketing, sales and distribution at Sprint.

Service Complaints

Sprint is also seeking to improve customer service in its wireless unit to help retain and attract users, Lauer said.

The company last year had 2.25 service complaints per 10,000 subscribers, the second-highest among the top six carriers, according to Federal Communications Commission data obtained by Consumer Reports magazine. AT&T Wireless had the most at 3.39, and Verizon Wireless had the fewest at 0.76.

``For us, it wasn’t a primary initiative over the years and now we’ve really made that job No. 1,’’ Lauer said of customer satisfaction.

Sprint will put repairmen in one quarter of its 800 retail stores by year’s end, Lauer said. Sprint is also spending $50 million to $100 million to subsidize handsets for existing customers so they get the same deals as new users, and is making customers’ bills simpler, he said.

As Sprint seeks to minimize any size disadvantage, its rivals aren’t standing still. MCI, for example, has hired investment banks to find a buyer for the company, people familiar with the matter said last month.

Asked which companies would cause Sprint the most trouble in the next five years, Forsee paused. ``That’s a long list,’’ he said.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Dana Cimilluca in New York at dcimilluca@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Emma Moody at emoody@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: October 6, 2004 14:33 EDT

OVERLAND PARK, Kan., Sept. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Federation of
Coffee Growers of Colombia (FNC) has selected Sprint (NYSE: FON) to provide a
complete communications bundle to the organization’s new Juan Valdez Cafe
coffee house chain in the United States. Under the multiyear agreement,
Sprint will provide local, long-distance, Internet and Wi-Fi service to the
recently launched Juan Valdez Cafe locations in New York City and Washington,
D.C., and it is anticipated that Sprint will be the main communications
provider for an additional 25 store openings planned across the country within
the next six months.

(Logo: [ >>> ] )
To celebrate its new cafe concept in the United States, Juan Valdez Cafes
are offering for a limited time only coupons that will enable customers to
access Sprint PCS(SM) Wi-Fi Access at no charge at the New York and D.C.
cafes. With Sprint PCS Wi-Fi Access, customers can surf the Web, send email
and access their corporate network at speeds that are up to 100 times faster
than standard dial-up. Users will need a Wi-Fi enabled laptop or PDA.
Following the free coupon trial, Sprint PCS Wi-Fi Access service is available
for $9.95 per connection per location for 24 hours of unlimited access, or a
month-to-month plan is also available.

The Juan Valdez Cafe concept is unique in the world of coffee shops. It
is owned by the 560,000 coffee farmers of Colombia who carefully grow and
hand-pick Colombian Coffee. Over the next five years, several more cafes are
planned to open across the United States and worldwide. The cafes will offer a
wide array of coffee choices, including lattes and special traditional
Colombian coffee recipes. Proceeds from the Colombian coffee sales will be
reinvested in a variety of sustainable development, technical assistance and
other programs in Colombia’s coffee-growing regions.

«Juan Valdez Cafes needed a single point of contact that could provide a
nationwide communications solution that includes both wireless and wireline
services,» said Harry Campbell, president — Emerging/Mid-Markets Segment,
Sprint Business Solutions. «By building a customizable bundle that includes
local, long-distance, data and Sprint PCS Wi-Fi Access, Juan Valdez Cafes can
benefit from the simplicity, economy and flexibility of dealing with one
contact and one provider.»

In late July, Sprint announced its new Sprint Complete Access service, a
customizable telecommunications services bundle that includes local,
long-distance and data services packaged at competitive pricing with one point
of contact and one bill. Details of the offering and service locations can be
found at:
[ >>> ] .

Sprint PCS Wi-Fi Access, Sprint’s high-speed wireless Internet service, is
currently available in thousands of locations, including airports, convention
centers, hotels, major truck stops and other public venues. For additional
information on Sprint PCS Wi-Fi Access, compatible Sprint PCS Wi-Fi Zones™,
billing options and how to establish an account, visit
[ >>> ] .

Customers are invited to sample the new high-quality, Juan Valdez-branded
Colombian specialty coffee blends and the limited free-trial offer of Sprint
PCS Wi-Fi Access at the New York City Juan Valdez Cafe located at 140 E. 57th
Street or the Washington, D.C location at 1889 F Street NW.

About Sprint
Sprint is a global integrated communications provider serving more than 26
million customers in over 100 countries. With more than $26 billion in annual
revenues in 2003, Sprint is widely recognized for developing, engineering and
deploying state-of-the-art network technologies, including the United States’
first nationwide all-digital, fiber-optic network and an award-winning Tier 1
Internet backbone. Sprint provides local communications services in 39 states
and the District of Columbia and operates the largest 100-percent digital,
nationwide PCS wireless network in the United States. For more information,
visit [ >>> ] .

About the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia
The National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia, a non-profit
organization, seeks to raise the standard of living for more than 560,000
Colombian coffee farmers and their communities through the cultivation and
worldwide promotion of Colombian Coffee. Today, the Federation, the creator
of the world-renowned Juan Valdez and 100% Colombian Coffee brands, supplies
premium, specialty, green, and soluble coffees to hundreds of customers in
North America and around the world. It recently opened the first U. S. Juan
Valdez Cafe, featuring the Federation’s own Juan Valdez-branded specialty
coffee blends. The Federation invests profits from the sale of Colombian
coffee in social programs that benefit millions of Colombians, helping to
develop roads, schools, electric power supplies, housing, and health care
centers.

Sprint to Provide Free Calling Stations to Area Residents

OVERLAND PARK, Kan., Sprint (NYSE: FON — News) technicians are making process restoring wireless and landline service for customers along the Gulf Coast and in Alabama affected by Hurricane Ivan. Sprint estimates 46,000 local access lines in the Fort Walton Beach, Fla., district are without service. Service levels may continue to fluctuate until power systems stabilize and all repairs have occurred.

While Sprint technicians are working to restore efforts as quickly as possible, for safety concerns, access to some areas is being restricted by local authorities.

«Sprint appreciates our customers’ understanding as we work to restore service in the areas affected by Ivan,» said John Quigley, director — Network Operations, Sprint. «We are working with emergency management officials and local power companies to prioritize service restoration. Our technicians are working around the clock to make sure our customers can connect with their friends and family as soon as is humanly possible.»

Customers are encouraged to contact Sprint customer service to report outages. Customers can call the following numbers to report outages:

-- 1–800–788–3600 or visit [ >>> ] to report local service
problems
-- 1–800–786–6272 for business customers
-- 1–800–737–3404 for wireless customers in Mobile, Ala.; Montgomery Ala.;
Panama City, Fla.; Ft. Walton Beach, Fla.; Pensacola, Fla.; and Houma,
La.
-- 1–888–211–4727 for wireless customers in all other impacted areas

Sprint wireless customers impacted by Hurricane Ivan can expect some billing relief. Sprint wireless customers impacted will receive a one-time Monthly Recurring Charge discount of 10 percent if they call or visit a retail location. Sprint also will credit out-of-network roaming charges customers may face as a result of Sprint wireless network issues related to the hurricane.

Sprint Stores

Sprint retail locations are open along the Gulf Coast in Mississippi; Louisiana; Panama City, Fla.; and Birmingham, Ala. Once power is restored and repairs are completed in Pensacola, Fla.; Ft. Walton Beach, Fla.; Mobile, Ala.; and Montgomery, Ala., retail stores will reopen to serve customers and offer free calls to those without phone service.

Community Service

Once local authorities allow Sprint technicians into Ft. Walton Beach, pay phone banks will be moved to the area so customers can make free calls to loved ones. Also, the Sprint Mobile Showroom stocked with wireless phones, batteries and accessories will be arriving in Mobile to provide customers another outlet where they can contact friends and family and receive customer service.

In addition, Sprint has donated hundreds of wireless phones to the American Red Cross which are ready to be mobilized for disaster relief communications. Prepaid long-distance phone cards are provided to storm shelter and safety personnel for distribution as appropriate.

Caution to Customers Cleaning Up

Sprint asks customers who are cleaning up their homes and neighborhoods to avoid piling refuse and debris for garbage pickup near telephone terminals located curbside on neighborhood streets. This will help avoid front-end loaders and other large machinery from potentially damaging Sprint equipment during pick-up service.

About Sprint

Sprint is a global integrated communications provider serving more than 26 million customers in over 100 countries. With more than $26 billion in annual revenues in 2003, Sprint is widely recognized for developing, engineering and deploying state-of-the-art network technologies, including the United States’ first nationwide all-digital, fiber-optic network and an award-winning Tier 1 Internet backbone. Sprint provides local communications services in 39 states and the District of Columbia and operates the largest 100-percent digital, nationwide PCS wireless network in the United States. For more information, visit [ >>> ] .

By following some unusual strategies, the carrier that used to be a telecom also-ran is blowing past competitors

Pop quiz: Which major U.S. telecom company is going to post the fastest growth this year? True, it’s a dismal bunch. The long-distance giants AT&T (T) and MCI (MCIP) are melting like ice cream in a microwave. The Bells SBC Communications (SBC ), Verizon Communications (VZ ), Qwest Communications International (Q ), and BellSouth (BLS ) are looking at a year of stagnating revenues or meager growth.

No, the telecom company with the most juice these days is a former also-ran -- Sprint (FON ). The Overland Park, Kan., company is pegged to boost revenues 6.5% this year, to $27.9 billion, according to Stanley. «It’s a real mover,» says analyst Viktor Shvets of Deutsche Bank Securities.

FINANCIAL MUSCLE. That Sprint is outshining its peers is a dramatic change in fortune. For years, the company was an afterthought in telecom: The underachieving Midwestern upstart, perennially chasing AT&T and MCI. When the company came to mind, it was often as an acquisition target suited to round out another’s portfolio.

But even as Sprint’s long-distance rivals have crashed, CEO Gary D. Forsee has deftly guided his carrier through the wreckage. By focusing on wireless services and making a risky bet on leasing its networks to rivals, Sprint has become one of the most powerful players in the troubled telecom business. «We’re taking action,» says Forsee. «We’re making bold moves that will keep us in position to be successful.»

Now, Sprint has the muscle to do what would have been unthinkable a few years ago: Initiate a big-time acquisition. With a market cap of $28 billion, Sprint could make a run at almost any phone company in the States, except the biggest Bells. It could easily roll up the long-distance business by buying AT&T or MCI, worth $12 billion and $5 billion.

LEASING PARTNERS. That’s unlikely given the deep troubles at both companies, but a deal to bolster its wireless business is a distinct possibility. Alltel (AT ) in Little Rock would add 8 million wireless customers to Sprint’s existing base of 17 million. Nextel Communications (NXTL ) would add 14 million subscribers, catapulting Sprint into the same league as giants Verizon Wireless and Cingular Wireless. «That would set them apart and make [the industry] a good three-horse race,» says Michael J. Price, senior managing director at Evercore Partners Inc., a New York investment and banking consultant. Although Forsee wouldn’t rule the possibility out, he says Sprint doesn’t need to make an acquisition.

How Sprint hoisted itself into position to run with the best is a lesson in foresight and discipline. The company made a huge bet on wireless in the mid-1990s, bidding aggressively on government licenses and then investing billions in its network. The result: Wireless revenues have grown so rapidly that they now account for more than half the company’s sales.

Forsee, a longtime Sprint exec who rejoined the company last year after a four-year stint at BellSouth, is building on that foundation. The 54-year-old is striking deals to let other companies lease Sprint’s wireless network and then market their own services. Already, Virgin Mobile is buying wholesale service from Sprint and has targeted the youth market to become the fastest-growing wireless company in the U. S. Qwest resells Sprint service. And longtime rival AT&T will begin to use Sprint’s wireless network after Cingular closes its deal to buy AT&T Wireless this fall.

RIDING SHOTGUN. Those partnerships brought in 300,000 subscribers in the second quarter, nearly two-thirds of its total net additions. «To be successful, we have to be sure that we are taking full advantage of our assets,» Forsee says.

In perhaps its most unconventional move, Sprint is teaming up with cable operators to deliver voice service to residential customers. Sprint already has a local phone business with 8 million lines in small cities stretching from Lady Lake, Fla., to Hood River, Ore. But that’s only 5% of U.S. customers. To reach the other 95%, Sprint is riding shotgun with cable players such as Time Warner (TWX ) and Mediacom Communications (MCCC ) as they begin to deliver phone service over their cable pipes. Time Warner provides the link to the home and Sprint the expertise to enable customized voice mail, call forwarding, and operator assistance. Sprint gets a flat fee from every customer the cable companies sign up.

The real prize may come from future services Sprint hopes to offer through the cable partnerships. The company plans to persuade these cable customers to buy Sprint’s cutting-edge wireless services. That would include letting customers preview movies on their wireless video phone on the commute home and then place an order to download the movie so it’s waiting as they walk in the door. That’s a nifty vision of the future. But is it realistic? Even Sprint COO Len J. Lauer concedes: «We don’t have the cable companies’ full agreement. This is our concept, what we’d like to do.»

Take it as a sign of the new Sprint. Lauer and Forsee understand that the winners in telecom won’t be those standing idly by. Whether it’s launching services -- or perhaps making an acquisition -- the onetime laggard is now in position to lead the way.

By Roger O. Crockett in Overland Park, Kan.

New Orleans Flooding Poses Biggest Threat, Customers Asked to Be Patient During Recovery Effort

OVERLAND PARK, Kan., /PRNewswire/ Sprint (NYSE: FON — News) crews are ready and on standby to participate in any restoration efforts once Hurricane Ivan passes through the Gulf Coast. However, residents should be aware that restoration and recovery could take time due to several factors. Sprint’s communications systems rely on electricity and local telephone service in order to operate, infrastructure that can be impacted by the storm.
(Logo: [ >>> ] )

«Flooding is a major concern with Hurricane Ivan, especially in areas such as New Orleans that are at or below sea level,» said John Quigley, director — Network Operations, Sprint. «After the storm passes and local authorities tell us the area is safe, we will quickly move our workers into the affected areas and begin restoring service.»

Sprint Well Prepared

Sprint has been monitoring the storm track, mobilizing personnel and equipment, and securing stores and other facilities in preparation for the storm. Generators are staged at strategic locations for deployment as needed. Sprint also has Cells-on-Wheels (mobile cell sites) standing by to respond to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) requests.

After the storm passes, local damage-assessment teams and network engineers inspect the landline and wireless networks to assess damage. Sprint also is in close contact with local and state government agencies and power company officials to coordinate damage repair and recovery efforts.

Commitment to Public Service

Portable public phone banks will be placed at strategic places throughout affected areas that have local Sprint service so customers can contact loved ones.

In addition, Sprint has donated hundreds of wireless phones to the American Red Cross which are ready to be mobilized for disaster relief communications. Prepaid long-distance phone cards are provided to storm shelter and safety personnel for distribution as appropriate.

About Sprint

Sprint is a global integrated communications provider serving more than 26 million customers in over 100 countries. With more than $26 billion in annual revenues in 2003, Sprint is widely recognized for developing, engineering and deploying state-of-the-art network technologies, including the United States’ first nationwide all-digital, fiber-optic network and an award- winning Tier 1 Internet backbone. Sprint provides local communications services in 39 states and the District of Columbia and operates the largest 100-percent digital, nationwide PCS wireless network in the United States. For more information, visit [ >>> ] .

By SUZANNE KING The Kansas City Star

Sprint Corp. will pay more than $1.1 million to settle charges that it violated consumer credit protection laws, the Federal Trade Commission said Friday.

A federal investigation found that during 2001 and 2002, Sprint failed to live up to requirements of the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

The law requires companies that either deny service or offer modified service based on an unfavorable credit report to notify the customer and provide the name and address of the credit reporting agency.

The trade commission also alleges that Sprint violated the Equal Credit Opportunity Act by failing to provide notices or omitting certain information from the notices it did provide.

The laws are designed to give consumers recourse to dispute inaccurate information in their credit reports. Ron Isaac, the trade commission’s lead attorney on the investigation, said the charges involved Sprint’s local and long distance services but were not connected to the company’s wireless business.

In a statement, Sprint denied any wrongdoing.

„The FTC’s allegations raise a number of technical legal issues,“ spokesman Scott Stoffel said. „But rather than engage in a lengthy, expensive court battle over those issues, Sprint has chosen to put this dispute to rest so that we can instead continue to focus on providing outstanding products and services to our customers in full compliance with applicable legal requirements.“

Sprint agreed to pay $1.125 million under the agreement announced Friday.

AT&T, Sprint’s long distance rival, was fined for similar violations uncovered during the same investigation.

AT&T will pay $365,000 for violations based on its long distance business, Isaac said.

Mark Cooper, director of research with the Consumer Federation of America, said companies should be accountable for constructing barriers to electricity and basic telephone service.

„These are necessities,“ he said. „As a matter of public policy, we want citizens to have fair access to the necessities of daily life.“

Shares in Sprint closed Friday at $19.65, down 11 cents. AT&T stock closed at $15.13, up 9 cents.

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.

(Bloomberg) Sprint Corp., the No. 4 U.S. mobile- phone company, said its customers will get access to 2,300 public wireless Internet connections run by SBC Communications Inc.

The accord boosts by 75 percent the number of wireless fidelity, or Wi-Fi, sites available in coffee shops and other public places to Sprint customers, said Wes Dittmer, head of Sprint’s Wi-Fi unit. SBC users can browse the Web and view files at five Sprint locales. He declined to disclose financial terms.

U.S. Wi-Fi sales may surge to more than $1.5 billion a year by 2008 from $33 million this year, said Pyramid Research, helping phone carriers compensate for a slump in wire-line services. Second-quarter sales of local calling, the main business at San Antonio-based SBC, dropped 6.5 percent. Sprint’s long-distance sales fell 6.6 percent.

``It’s an addicting habit to get into, being able to be wireless and move at that fast a pace,’’ said Dittmer in an interview.

Communications companies make Wi-Fi available at so-called hot spots mainly in public locations to cater to business travelers who need access to networks or the Internet outside the home or office. At least 10,000 hot spots will be available to Sprint’s consumer and corporate customers by 2005 through additional agreements Dittmer declined to detail.

Sprint sells unlimited Wi-Fi service for $50 a month.

Shares of Overland Park, Kansas-based Sprint, also the third- largest U.S. long-distance operator, rose 7 cents to $19.42 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading yesterday. SBC, the nation’s No. 2 local carrier, rose 5 cents to $25.74.

Wi-Fi Access

SBC clients will have access from laptops and handheld devices to more than 20,000 hot spots by the end of 2006, the company said in a joint statement with Sprint. SBC said it has about 2,700 hot spots in hotels, airports, coffee shops and United Parcel Service Inc. stores.

Sprint locations available to SBC under the agreement are in the international airports of Salt Lake City, Kansas City, Missouri, and Louisville, Kentucky; the Addison, Texas, convention center; and a shopping center in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia.

The agreement will take effect in the fourth quarter, said SBC spokesman Michael Coe.

Most of the 3,000 hot spots now available to Sprint users came through agreements with companies including AT&T Wireless Services Inc. Sprint and AT&T Wireless, the nation’s third- biggest cellular carrier, agreed in April to share Wi-Fi hot spots in five airports.

By Craig Cooper

Mediacom customers in the Quad-Cities soon will be able to add home telephone service to the television subscription and high-speed Internet services already available from the company.

Mediacom Communications Corporation has signed an agreement with Sprint to enable Mediacom to provide Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, telephone service to 2.7 homes in 23 states.

LeeAnn James, senior manager of government affairs for Mediacom in the Quad-Cities, said the bundling of telecommunications services will potentially save customers money compared to splitting the services between different providers.

„We’ll be able to do everything from one line and customers will be able to pay all services with one check,’’ James said. „Mediacom will be providing a competitive alternative to local and long distance phone companies but customers will still be able to get their long distance service from other carriers.

„If a family makes a lot of overseas calls, it might be more economical for them to use another plan. ’’

James said customers will not have to change phone numbers or equipment to use Mediacom for telephone service. The launch is scheduled for early 2005.

„It will not be necessary to subscribe to our video or high speed Internet services to receive the phone service, but there will be a cost savings overall if customers do that,’’ James said. „There will be bundling advantages for customers.

James said that the price point for local and unlimited long distance telephone service will be $40 per month, including some premium calling features.

Mediacom chairman and CEO Rocco Commissio said; „The strategic alliance with Sprint will permit our company to offer our customers a powerful bundle of broadband products in one package, on one bill, from one provider and at a lower cost.

The Sprint-Mediacom deal is the third Sprint has announced in the past eight months to provide a cable provider with VoIP technology. Last December Sprint and Time Warner Cable announced a similar agreement.

Wireless telephone service is expected to be the next step in the Sprint-Mediacom deal.

Mediacom is the eighth-largest cable television company in the country. The company focuses on smaller cities and towns.

Sprint provides communications service to more than 26 million customers in more than 100 countries. Company sales last year were $26 billion.