AT&T Inc.

Sprint Nextel Corp. watched another 1.3 million wireless subscribers head for its competitors during the third quarter, leading the company to post a loss that sent its stock skidding Friday.

Dan Hesse, the Overland Park, Kan.-based company's chief executive, told analysts that Sprint Nextel plans to work harder to attract new customers during the upcoming holiday season but acknowledged "we have yet to turn the corner."

"We made good progress on our operational priorities in the third quarter and resolved some key issues," he said. "Still, subscriber losses are too high."

Before you wake up in the morning, your iPhone downloads your news and tells your coffeemaker to start brewing. Then when you're up and you wave the device at your TV, the news feeds get transferred to your TV.

That's how AT&T's iPhone chief Ralph de la Vega envisions the popular Apple device in the future, according to a public discussion Wednesday at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.

Lock Your Door, Start Your Car

In many rural areas, people who want high-speed Internet access have only one option: relatively slow and expensive satellite dishes. Now parts of rural Vermont could get a new choice.

Phone company FairPoint Communications Inc. intends to beam Internet connections over radio waves to homes and business in the state, in what appears to be the largest planned U.S. deployment of "fixed wireless" technology as a substitute for wired Internet service.

Verizon Communications Inc. said Monday earnings rose 31 percent in the third quarter as wireless did better than expected, while its traditional phone business continued to decline.

The country's second largest telecommunications company, after AT&T Inc., earned $1.67 billion, or 59 cents per share, up from $1.27 billion, or 44 cents a share, a year ago.

Revenue rose 4.1 percent to $24.7 billion.

The escalating financial crisis has hit some companies in the capital-intensive telecommunications business, and is likely to favor the biggest, most stable players over the long term, an analyst said Thursday.

"The riskiest of the telco bets, and in particular the ones that are most dependent on financing, have taken the biggest hit," said Craig Moffett at Sanford Bernstein.

The road to advanced video, Internet and phone services is bumpy -- and the bumps can be almost as big as refrigerators.

As cable and phone companies race to upgrade services or offer video for the first time, they're doing it by installing equipment in boxes on lawns, easements and curbs all over American neighborhoods. Telecommunications rollouts have always been messy, but several towns and residents are fighting back with cries of "Not in my front yard!"

The new BlackBerry model should be coming to North America within a month now that Research In Motion Ltd. has started selling it in Germany and Chile.

The first major new BlackBerry model in more than a year, the Bold is a high-end BlackBerry that has twice the screen resolution of current models made by RIM. The Bold, or 9000, matches the resolution, but not the size, of the screen on Apple Inc.'s iPhone, which has emerged as a potent competitor in the smart-phone category.

Is it a long, long way to Tipperary? Don't know if you're on the path to Bath?

AT&T Inc. aims to help, with a new phone service that truly puts the "global" in the Global Positioning System, or GPS.

On Tuesday, it introduced the AT&T Navigator Global Edition, a service that for the first time allows some of its phones to provide GPS navigation overseas. AT&T said it is the only plan of its kind from a U.S. carrier.

The plan costs $19.98 per month and works with seven "smart" phones: four BlackBerry models, plus the Tilt, BlackJack II and Moto QTM 9h.

New York's attorney general notified Comcast Corp. on Monday that the state will take legal action if the company -- the nation's second-largest Internet service provider -- doesn't agree to eliminate access to child pornography.

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo wants major Internet access providers to agree on steps to remove certain newsgroups that contain child pornography and purge their servers of Web sites that contain child porn.

New York has already reached such agreements with AT&T Inc., AOL, Verizon Communications Inc., Sprint Nextel Corp. and Time Warner Cable Inc.

Two more Internet access providers have agreed to eliminate certain newsgroups that contain child pornography and purge their servers of child pornography Web sites in an agreement with state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

Thursday's announcement covers AT&T Inc., the nation's largest access provider, and Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, the third largest. They follow similar agreements last month with Verizon Communications Inc., Sprint Nextel Corp. and Time Warner Cable Inc.

Although the agreements are with New York officials, they are expected to apply to all customers nationwide.