Sprint Corp

U.S. antitrust authorities have extended their review of No. 3 U.S. wireless carrier Sprint Corp.'s planned acquisition of rival Nextel Communications Inc. Antitrust lawyers have said they expected a second request for information in part because of the size of the deal in a rapidly consolidating industry. Nextel's proposed acquisition by Sprint, which also is a traditional local and long-distance provider, is currently valued at $33.8 billion. Nextel rose 44 cents to $28.

The letter S will have a new meaning at the New York Stock Exchange. Sprint Corp. will adopt the letter as its ticker symbol after buying Nextel Communications Corp. for $36 billion, a transaction that stockholders of the mobile-phone companies approved Wednesday. Sears, Roebuck & Co. surrendered the S symbol in March when Kmart Holding Corp. took it over. Sprint now trades under the symbol FON.

Sprint Corp., the No. 3 U.S. mobile phone company, and Nextel Communications Inc. are in talks about a possible merger, people familiar with the matter said Thursday. A merger would combine Sprint with the fifth-largest U.S. mobile phone company and create a provider with a market value of about $70 billion. Pressure on mobile phone companies to increase in size has grown since Cingular became Cingular Wireless in October through the purchase of AT&T Wireless Services for $41.

Sprint Corp. moved closer to an agreement to buy Nextel Communications Inc. for more than $36 billion in a mostly stock deal, sources familiar with the situation said Friday. The companies, which have held on-again, off-again talks in the last year, renewed negotiations in recent days for a merger that would create a wireless giant with 39 million customers.

BellSouth Corp. won extension of a court order preventing Vice Chairman Gary Forsee from becoming chief executive of rival telephone company Sprint Corp., with a judge ordering the dispute to be resolved in arbitration. The restraining order against Forsee, obtained by BellSouth in a Georgia court Jan. 31, was extended 30 days by the judge, according to legal documents.

Sprint Corp., the third-largest U.S. long-distance telephone company by sales, said the U.S. government decided not to suspend it from receiving new contracts. In August, the General Services Administration's inspector general recommended that the agency consider barring Sprint from U.S. work for allegedly defrauding federal clients. A debarment won't be pursued, Sprint said.

Thomas H. Lee Partners, Spectrum Equity Investors and R.H. Donnelley Corp. are the remaining bidders for Sprint Corp.'s telephone-book business, people familiar with the situation said. The companies have offered $1.75 billion to $2 billion for the business, and the winning bidder may be announced as early as next week, the people said. Sprint's shares Friday slipped 40 cents to close at $11.60 on the NYSE. They have fallen 42% this year.

Sprint Corp. is losing mobile-phone customers at a faster rate than it adds them for the first time, partly because some are not paying bills. Sprint's PCS unit expects the rate of service cancellations to rise to a "high 3% range" in the third quarter, from 2.9% in the second period. PCS profit, excluding certain costs, will miss the company's forecast. Shares that track the PCS unit fell 16 cents to $2.58 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Sprint Corp. said a takeover of the company by Britain's Cable & Wireless "could not be possible" because of agreements with France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom, which own pieces of Sprint. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Cable & Wireless was considering a takeover bid worth at least $15 billion for Sprint, the No. 3 U.S. long-distance company.

Sprint Corp. said the head of its long-distance operations, Patti Manuel, has resigned for personal reasons. Sprint said that instead of replacing Manuel, it will have its consumer and business long-distance units report to Ronald LeMay, Sprint's president and chief operating officer. The new structure is the first step in organizing the company along market segments instead of product lines.

Verizon, Sprint and Time Warner Cable have agreed to block access to child pornography and eliminate the material from their Internet servers, New York's attorney general said Tuesday. The companies also will pay $1.1 million to help fund efforts to remove the online child porn created and disseminated by users through their services, Atty. Gen. Andrew Cuomo said. The changes will affect customers nationwide.

After her husband's SUV was stolen from the driveway with her 10-month-old son still in the back seat, Stephanie Cochran of Riverside County thought the global positioning system in her husband's cellphone -- still inside the car -- would help her or the police locate her baby. It felt like it was "my last string of hope," Cochran said of their wireless provider, Sprint, about the Dec. 23 incident.

Sprint Nextel Corp. agreed to buy two affiliates for $714.5 million, ending some of the legal fights that sprang from the Sprint-Nextel merger. The company plans to acquire Gulf Coast Wireless for $287.5 million, including an unspecified amount of debt, and IWO Holdings Inc. for $427 million, including $208 million of net debt. The purchases will add more than 332,000 customers and help Chief Executive Gary Forsee's effort to resolve disputes with the Reston, Va.-based company's affiliates.

Sprint Corp. said it would complete its acquisition of Nextel Communications Inc. on Friday and begin trading as a unified stock Monday. The combination will form the third-largest wireless provider in the country.

Sprint Corp. and Cingular Wireless were accused by a consumer group of improperly charging cellphone customers for unwanted services. In complaints filed this week, the Utility Consumers' Action Network asked the California Public Utilities Commission to stop Cingular, the largest U.S. cellphone carrier, and Sprint from charging for unwanted text messages and other services. Sprint, the third-largest U.S.

The letter S will have a new meaning at the New York Stock Exchange. Sprint Corp. will adopt the letter as its ticker symbol after buying Nextel Communications Corp. for $36 billion, a transaction that stockholders of the mobile-phone companies approved Wednesday. Sears, Roebuck & Co. surrendered the S symbol in March when Kmart Holding Corp. took it over. Sprint now trades under the symbol FON.

Sprint Corp. said Monday that it was buying affiliate U.S. Unwired Inc. for about $1 billion, ending that company's attempt to block Sprint's planned merger with Nextel Communications Inc. The acquisition, coming only days before shareholders of Sprint and Nextel vote on their companies' $35-billion combination, would settle what has been a difficult relationship between Sprint and one of its largest regional affiliates. As part of the agreement, the two sides will ask the U.S.

Sprint Corp. announced its arrival on the wireless broadband scene Thursday, more than a year and a half after one of its top rivals, Verizon Wireless, started offering broadband Internet service. Sprint said its goal was to provide mobile broadband service to about 150 million people by early next year. The service, using Evolution Data Optimized, or EvDO, technology, will be available in business districts and airports in 34 markets by the end of this month.

Walt Disney Co. is going mobile. The Burbank entertainment company said Wednesday that it planned to sell by next year Disney-brand mobile phones and services that use the Sprint Corp. wireless network, targeting families as customers. Under the arrangement, Disney would be responsible for all aspects of the Disney Mobile service, including marketing, customer relations and billing. Disney Mobile would feature entertainment and services tailored for parents and children.

Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. said it reached a deal to supply music channels to telecommunications company Sprint Corp. in a mobile phone service to be introduced later this year. The agreement is aimed at getting more listeners for Sirius' subscription radio service and is part of plans at Sprint to extend entertainment services it has recently begun to deliver to mobile phones.