Sprint, Cable Companies Team to Provide Services

NEW YORK, Nov. 2 -- Cell phone company Sprint Nextel Corp. and cable companies Comcast Corp., Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications and Advance/Newhouse Communications today announced they have formed a partnership to provide "quadruple play" services -- video, wireless voice and data, high-speed Internet and cable telephone -- through Sprint's network to the cable companies' 41 million subscribers and Sprint's 46 million customers. Analysts say the move is cable TV's response to telephone companies announcing that they will soon provide television services.

Under the agreement, the initial financial commitment of $200 million will be split, with Sprint contributing half and the cable companies contributing the other $100 million. The 20-year deal is exclusively between Sprint and the four cable companies for the first three, after which other cable companies are expected to join. The companies will work to develop new products that integrate cable and wireless services on a single device and will sell them to customers through 1600 Sprint retail stores, cable retail outlets and third-party distributors, including RadioShack.

Beginning in 2006, some of these combined offerings could include giving customers the ability to program a digital video recorder (DVR) via their cell phone; providing a single voicemail for home and wireless phones, allowing unlimited calls between home and cell phones and streaming TV and music on a cell phone.

In addition, the five companies have agreed to work together to explore potential next-generation wireless technology business plans for new services that could be provided using Sprint's broadband radio spectrum (2.5 GHz), with the goal of further integrating wireline and wireless services.

For more information, visit: www.sprint.com