All that gloom and doom about a credit crunch hurting telecom wasn’t just words on a screen. For example, AT&T Inc. (T) said last week it was having trouble selling its short-term debt for longer than overnight. Now comes word that Embarq Corp. (EQ) is finding out the hard way that raising capital in this financial environment is difficult, if not impossible.

The fourth-largest telco in the United States (by subscribers) wanted to put itself up for sale. Embarq had hired investment bank JPMorgan to explore a sale, but, as TeleGeography pointed out today, the deadline for bids expired. Rumor had it that Windstream (WIN) and Qwest Communications International Inc.

By JASON GERTZEN

Embarq, the former Sprint unit that sells local phone service and high-speed Internet connections in parts of 18 states, is cutting costs and focusing on rapidly growing niches while confronting continued deterioration in its home phone business.

Wall Street analysts such as Jonathan Levine at Jefferies & Co. think the Kansas company isn’t getting all the credit it deserves for executing a strategy that’s likely to continue boosting adjusted earnings in the near term.

That being said, Levine wrote in a new investor report Friday that he would be on the watch soon for possible merger and acquisition deals involving companies such as Embarq and Windstream, a local phone company out of Little Rock, Ark., that spun off Alltel.

Continues here: »www.kansascity.com/business/tech···158.html

By JASON GERTZEN

Embarq Corp. is offering its cell-phone customers an unusually large bucket of calling minutes this month.

By Leslie Cauley, USA TODAY

NEW YORK — When cellphone giants Sprint and Nextel merged in 2005, investors had a lot of hope for the combined company.
Few paid attention to Embarq, which was spun off from Sprint after the Nextel merger closed.

SAN JOSE -- F-Secure Corporation, the pioneer and leader in offering Internet and mobile security as a service through broadband providers, and Embarq Corporation (NYSE:EQ), a leading broadband service provider, today announced that EMBARQ is offering its US residential and small business customers F-Secure’s Internet security service. Under the name EMBARQTM Online Security, F-Secure’s Internet security service, a retail value of $79, is included at no additional charge with EMBARQTM High-Speed Internet service.

By Linda Haugsted -- Multichannel News, 4/30/2007

Embarq, a competitive local-telephone company that provides bundled services, has rolled the dice on a multimedia advertising campaign, dinging the reliability of Cox Communications' telephone service in Las Vegas.

Targeted at residential customers, the print, radio and outdoor advertising campaign is based on research commissioned by Embarq from Keynote Competitive Research, which examines telephone companies and creates service benchmarks for voice quality and call completion, among other standards.

Continues here

screenplays magazine
April 27, 2007


EMBARQ has migrated its residential and business class DSL customers to new branded Internet portals that facilitate easy home page personalization and single sign-on to multiple content services.

With its spinoff from former parent Sprint Corp. last year, EMBARQ, which offers local and long distance phone, high-speed Internet, wireless, and DISH Network satellite TV services in 18 states, is migrating all existing customers from earthlink.net email addresses (a long time Sprint partner) to a new embarqmail.com domain.

Continued: »www.screenplaysmag.com/tabid/96/···ult.aspx

Highlights of the 1st quarter 2007 results include:
* Reported solid revenue, earnings and cash flow results
* For the second consecutive quarter, lost fewer access lines to competitors than in the prior year
quarter
* Accelerated growth in high-capacity business data revenue and maintained solid wholesale data
revenue growth
* Added 87,000 high-speed Internet subscribers – a new company record
* Launched an EMBARQ-branded portal offering several enhancements for high-speed Internet subscribers
* Declared a dividend of $0.625 per share for the second quarter, an increase from $0.50 per share in the
first quarter
* Reaffirmed its outlook for 2007


see full statement at:
»investors.embarq.com/phoenix.zht···ghlight=

Local telecommunication provider Embarq Corp. plans to unveil its new technology center today in Gardner, severing one of its last ties to former parent Sprint Nextel Corp.

Embarq Corp., soon will be implementing EASE, the Embarq Administration & Service Ordering Exchange for self-service. The company said carrier and CLEC customers can look forward to a “new, simpler ordering process” as Embarq rolls out the online offering.

About 750,000 Embarq DSL customers will lose a part of their online identities this spring, as the local telephone provider ends its email contract with EarthLink.

Starting in April, Embarq customers with email addresses ending in @earthlink.com will be switched onto @embarqmail.com accounts. Messages sent to the old addresses will continue to be forwarded until October 31, at which time users will need to either subscribe to an EarthLink email plan for $3.95/month, or lose their email addresses completely.

For most people it will be pretty painless, and it will be a significant upgrade for them,” commented Embarq spokesman, Tom Matthews, noting that the new Embarq Mail service will come with a number of convenient new features.

Continues here

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (AP) _ Embarq Corporation is asking employees for 200 volunteers to resign, or it will take other job cutting measures.

WAKE FOREST, N.C. -- Since its May 17, 2006, separation from Sprint Nextel, Embarq Corporation has emerged as an innovative provider of communications solutions.

The milestone is important as Embarq's Internet access growth offsets its loss of phone lines to wireless substitution and cable competitors.

Embarq lost 450,000, or 6 percent, of its phone lines in the third quarter.

Overland Park-based Embarq (NYSE: EQ) ended the third quarter with 933,000 DSL subscribers, up 46 percent from 638,000 the prior year. High-speed Internet access now accounts for about 7 percent of Embarq's revenue, up from 6 percent last year.

Continues here.

OVERLAND PARK, Kan., Dec. 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- In appreciation of outstanding customer loyalty by small business and home office customers, Embarq Corporation launched the EMBARQ(TM) Business Rewards program.

Associated Press
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. - Telecommunications companies Embarq Corp.

A one sentence blip appeared in the Earthlink 3Q report:

"EarthLink and Embarq Corp [NYSE: EQ] have elected to not renew their DSL broadband agreement that is set to expire effective April 2007."

Embarq has not yet made a public statement.

»www.earthlink.net/about/press/pr···pansion/

October 01,2006
LUCIE R. WILLSIE

Two new services — at no additional charge — are being added to Embarq’s residential high-speed Internet package.

“It’s a competitive market,” said Tom Matthews, Embarq regional manager of external communications. “We’re trying to be innovative.”

One is 25 gigabytes of secure online storage and the other is on-demand video.

Continues @ Sun Journal

By Jeff Baumgartner, CED
September 25, 2006

Wave7 Optics and Embarq Logistics, the distribution and supply arm of Embarq, are tag-teaming on a fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) deployment with Ridgeville Telephony Company of Ohio.

The resulting EPON-based system, based on Wave7's Trident7 technology, will be capable of piping in voice and data services, and could leverage an RF overlay to deliver a lineup of broadcast video channels.

Ridgeville Telephony, which serves more than 50,000 residential and business access lines, said it plans to add IPTV and music channels "at a later date."

The companies expect to begin connecting customers to the new network later this year.

CED

San Diego-based Streamload, a provider of online digital media storage, is in a new deal to provide online storage and backup services to customers of Embarq a high speed Internet provider.

Streamload said this morning that Embarq will provide up to 25 GB of online storage for free to its users through Streamload's technology. Embarq is using Streamload's new Web Services API to integrate Streamload's storage services into its internet services. Embarq is headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas.

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