The companies dropped an exclusivity arrangement allowing both EarthLink and Sprint to seek out other partners.
EarthLink lost just 7 cents per dollar and notched positive earnings before interest depreciation and amortization.
Clever acquisitions have put EarthLink in an enviable position when the telecoms bounce back.
"There are fewer newbies left to attract, " says EarthLink Vice President Dan Greenfield .
But EarthLink's strategy of marketing itself as an alternative to AOL doesn't seem to be working.
Telecom provider Sprint and Internet service provider EarthLink announced today that they will revise their alliance forged in 1998.
Sources say that EarthLink executives have privately expressed optimism that the company would be awarded the contract.
Instead of the city using tax dollars to build a network, Earthlink put up its own capital.
Acquisition economies could more easily pare the Onemain.com losses, providing a positive contribution to EarthLink's bottom line.
For EarthLink, publicly acknowledging the annoyance of pop-up advertising is almost of no consequence to its business.
Another list has been discovered on the site with Gmail, Yahoo, Comcast, AOL, and Earthlink addresses and passwords.
And instead of getting an exclusive franchise, Earthlink agreed to re-sell network capacity to other providers who ask.
While EarthLink was buying out, McLeodUSA (nasdaq: MCLD - news - people) was bailing out.
Earlier this year, EarthLink acquired CIDCO, which made the Mailstation e-mail device that includes a limited e-mail service.
ISPs EarthLink and Road Runner aren't waiting around for the bureaucrats to act.
"The cities I've talked to don't believe there are enough choices, " Cole Reinwand, a vice president at Earthlink, says.
The launch of innovation-focused virtual network operators like SK-Earthlink?s Helio will push the big carriers to deliver cool applications.
Earthlink can unlikely afford cancellations of user accounts in exchange for freemail accounts.
FORBES: Earthlink Follows Blackberry With Widespread Email Outages
Early enthusiasm among access providers, such as EarthLink and even Google, has faded.
EarthLink needs to do a bang-up marketing job or offer some amazing service perks to get them on board.
EarthLink announced a buyout of wireless data-service provider Omnisky (nasdaq: OMNY - news - people ).
Unlike the AOL service, EarthLink's wireless access is not limited to landline subscribers.
That means EarthLink is looking high and low for dial-up customers to buy.
Scientology devotee Sky Dayton, 29, was the postpubescent founder of EarthLink, one of the most successful independent Internet service providers.
For Dayton, Ecompanies was a chance to avenge his mistake in giving away too much equity in EarthLink early on.
EarthLink tried to market itself by offering "real" Internet service that users who start out on AOL can "graduate" to.
EarthLink said in a recent earnings report that its dial-up business contracted slightly, from about 4.3 million to 4.2 million.
One of the more interesting aspects of the deal: the resurfacing of Earthlink founder Sky Dayton, who also founded Boingo.
FORBES: Boingo Wireless IPO Finds Lukewarm Reception On Day One
"There's more stickiness when you have a bundled set of features, " says Mark Griffith , director of product marketing for EarthLink.
The joint venture, to be called SK-EarthLink, will lease its network from existing carriers and focus on attracting high-end, data-centric customers.
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