Verizon Wireless

Verizon Wireless Inc., the largest U.S. mobile telephone carrier, will begin selling a walkie-talkie phone as early as next month, marking the first such challenge to Nextel Communications Inc., said people familiar with the matter. Verizon Wireless will sell Motorola Inc.'s V60p phone and one model from South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. From Bloomberg News

Verizon Wireless will unveil a music-playing phone and online music service to compete with Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes store and phone to be launched with Motorola Inc. A Verizon Wireless-branded LG Electronics Inc. handset will be available by August, as much as a month before Motorola and Apple are due to unveil an iTunes phone. Verizon Wireless' music service is expected to be up and running in six to eight months, Chief Executive Dennis Strigl said.

Verizon Wireless has signed on to be the first cellular service provider to offer a broadcast TV network for mobile phones that San Diego-based Qualcomm Inc. plans to launch in late 2006. The companies declined to say what programming might be featured over the MediaFLO system, which will be broadcast to mobile phones over a portion of the wireless spectrum different from that of cellular calls and data services.

Verizon Wireless cut the price of high-speed wireless service for laptop computer users by 25% in a promotion aimed at winning more customers. Verizon Wireless, a venture of Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group, said it would offer a price of $59.99 a month through 2005. It had been charging $79.99 a month for the service, which delivers the Internet to laptops at speeds comparable to some home computers.

TELECOM * Qwest Communications International Inc., seeking to reduce $26.3 billion in debt, may sell its mobile-phone business to Verizon Wireless Inc. for as much as $1 billion, people familiar with the talks said. Qwest, the biggest local-phone company in 14 Western U.S. states, is selling assets after reporting nine straight quarterly losses. Alltel Corp., a rural-service provider in the Southeast and Midwest, also has considered buying the business.

Verizon Wireless Chief Executive Dennis Strigl told U.S. lawmakers that a planned mobile-phone directory was a "terrible idea" and that he wouldn't participate because it would jeopardize the privacy of his 40 million customers. "There is no groundswell of customer demand for a directory that would justify putting privacy in jeopardy," Strigl said at a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee, which today may vote on a bill to govern how such a registry would operate.

Verizon Wireless has sued two telemarketing companies over claims they made hundreds of thousands of unsolicited calls to cellphone users. In its lawsuits, Verizon accused Resort Marketing Trends of Coral Springs, Fla., and Intelligent Alternatives in San Diego of using automatic dialers and prerecorded messages to make hundreds of thousands of marketing calls to Verizon customers. Under federal law, telemarketers are barred from calling customers on their cellphones without consent.

Verizon Wireless has launched an appeal against the Federal Communication Commission's final rules for next year's auction of prized radio spectrum, calling them arbitrary and capricious. The company urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to strike down rules establishing so-called open-access conditions. It said they exceeded "the commission's authority" and were "unsupported by substantial evidence and otherwise contrary to law."