Local wireline telecommunications provider Embarq, which separated from its parent company Sprint Nextel on May 18, has been using some unconventional means of publicizing its status as a separate company.

Sprint Nextel Corp. and the Communications Workers of America reached agreement on the union’s labor dispute in the upcoming spinoff of its local landline business, to be named Embarq.

Sprint Nextel is largely known for its wireless business, but the company also has over 7.4 million local telephone lines across 18 states. As part of the Sprint-Nextel merger, the company will spin off the landline business to a separate company, named Embarq.

Dan Hesse, chief executive officer of Sprint Nextel, said the company would spin off its landline telephone business unit sometime in the second quarter of 2006.

By now most everyone has heard of NSA’s special collection program, where it intercepts and processes virtually all communications entering and leaving the U.S., ostensibly looking for terrorist activity. Many of you read in the New York Times that the agency is doing massive data mining. That’s all true, but how is the NSA moving all that data around?

The federal government owes wireless phone subscribers about $9 billion in tax refunds for the 3% federal excise tax charged on their bills, which was ruled illegal by a federal court today; however, the paperwork is likely to put off most people from filing for the refund, according to USA TODAY.

Back in 1898, Congress passed a levy of one cent per telephone call to help raise money to fund the Spanish-American War. The tax, while temporary, has been on-again, off-again throughout the years, and was reinstated in 1990. Now it is three percent (3%) of your overall telephone bill. And some people are refusing to pay it.

Sprint Nextel workers returned to work Monday after the union approved a new contract with the company. The employees had been on strike since Oct. 10.

Five of the nation’s largest wireless carriers have filed a lawsuit against the state of Kentucky over a wireless phone tax set to go into effect January 1, 2006. The new 1.3% tax on wireless phone revenue was passed last March, and prohibits wireless carriers from disclosing the existence of the tax on customer invoices.

Google Local, which provides maps, driving directions, and telephone numbers within the U.S., is now available to Java-enabled mobile phones, such as those from Cingular, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile.