Qwest drops Sprint for Verizon

by Stephen Lawson

May 5, 2008 —

Qwest Communications International
will resell Verizon
Wireless mobile service, ending a five-year deal with Sprint
Nextel.

Customers of the regional landline carrier will be able to buy Verizon mobile
service through Qwest, buy the services as a bundle and eventually be charged
for all Qwest and Verizon services on a single bill, the companies announced
Monday. Customers will also be able to choose "wireless only" and
get a separate bill from Verizon. The offer will begin by the end of September.

Qwest got out of the mobile business in early 2004, selling its own CDMA (Code-Division
Multiple Access) network to Verizon and making a deal to resell Sprint's service.
Like the Verizon agreement announced Monday, that was a five-year deal. The
Sprint arrangement will expire in February 2009, but there will be transition
support for some time afterward, according to Qwest spokesman Tom McMahon.

Sprint, the nation's third-largest mobile operator behind AT&T Mobility
and Verizon Wireless, has come under fire recently for poor customer service.
Qwest's decision comes at a bad time for Sprint, which has been shedding subscribers.

Qwest has been reselling Sprint service under its own brand as an MVNO (mobile
virtual network operator), so it has only offered a subset of Sprint's handsets
and service plans, McMahon said. With Verizon, it will resell everything the
mobile operator offers, so Qwest customers will have more choices. Another advantage
of the new deal is that Qwest and Verizon Wireless will work together on bidding
for government and enterprise contracts, McMahon said.

Qwest provides fixed-line telecommunications and broadband service in 14 states,
in addition to reselling DirecTV satellite video. In February, Qwest said it
had about 824,000 wireless customers.

Sprint was not immediately available for comment.

IDG News Service