Sprint may delay ION
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June 13, 2001: 10:58 a.m. ET
No. 3 long-distance carrier may slow roll-out for consumer market
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Sprint Corp., the third-largest U.S. long-distance telephone company, is considering scaling back plans to roll out high-speed network to consumers in favor of enhanced telecommunications services at cheaper rates, according to a published report Wednesday.
The integrated-on-demand network (ION), which Sprint (FON: down $0.41 to $20.43, Research, Estimates) has been developing for the past three years, would let consumers simultaneously talk, surf the Internet at high speeds, and send and receive faxes over a single phone line," the Wall Street Journal said.
The company had planned to deploy ION for consumers and small businesses in the second half of 2001, the paper said, but Sprint officials said the company will continue to sell ION services to medium- and large-business users and has no plans to pull back on that offering.
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Sprint said it ran into problems getting the voice portion of the network to function properly. "If we can get better voice stability, then we'll reassess what we're going to do," the report quoted a Sprint spokesman as saying.
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