| Midday Business Report: Sprint spent nearly $7 billion in wireless battle
Sprint, in a major battle for new wireless customers with its larger competitors, said today the company spent almost $7 billion on capital improvements this year. In a state of the network report, Sprint said the company added more than 3,000 cell towers in 2006 for the Sprint and Nextel networks. At the same time, Sprint worked to speed up its current wireless broadband network, adding EV-DO Revision A service in dozens of cities, the company said. "Sprint clearly understands that its customers expect access to powerful networks," said Kathy Walker, the company's chief network officer. Sprint began updating its cell sites for the higher-speed EV-DO Revision A network in October. "Since then, EV-DO Rev. A coverage has expanded to nearly 2,900 cities and nearly 67 million people — which surpassed the previously announced goal of 40 million people by the end of the year," Sprint said in a release.
Every School Every Thursday/West Des Moines
Throughout the unit, students and families made donations of lightly used items to be sold at the end of the unit in the mini-mall. Jennifer Harper's math class sorted the donations into departments for the shoppers. The departments ranged from toys and stuffed animals to books, jewelry, and holiday decorations. On the final day of the math unit, students took the money they had earned and went shopping.
Phenix
As part of Phenix's School-Wide Positive Behavior Supports program, children in kindergarten through third grade are learning the stop, think and plan approach to stopping a conflict before it escalates into violence. Children are taught ways to stop and calm down in order to be able to think about the smart thing to do in a problem situation. Once kids are calm enough to think, they are ready to pick a plan of action.
Warranty money not well-spent
This holiday season, shoppers are expected to spend a whopping $1.6 billion on extended warranties for appliances and such electronics as laptops and flat-screen TVs. For the most part, it won't be money well spent. Reliability data we've collected over the years shows that products seldom break within the extended-warranty window, which is typically three years. And even when electronics and appliances do break, the repair often costs about the same as the cost of the warranty. We've long advised against buying extended warranties for most products. In fact, we feel so strongly on the issue that we launched our first public-education campaign back in November, warning consumers not to waste their money on these service plans. Part of our motivation was the increasing pressure retailers are bringing to bear on buyers.
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