(including more than two million affiliates) and total revenue for the unit rose 53 percent to $9.73 billion that year. In late 2002, the company introduced its third- generation wireless service, enabling the company to deliver data services at much faster speeds. Sprint's two stocks, FON and PCS, traded separately for several years, but were recombined into one stock (FON) in April 2004 as Sprint moved from a Visit Vault at www.vault.com for insider company profiles, expert advice, VAULT CAREER career message boards, expert resume reviews, the Vault Job Board and more. LIBRARY Vault Guide to the Top Telecom Employers Sprint Corporation product-centered organization to a more customer-focused model with enterprise- and consumer-directed business units. Sprint continues to be one of the top wireless providers in North America with more than 23 million total subscribers announced at the end of the third quarter of 2004. A mega-merger that wasn't In 1999 MCI WorldCom negotiated a takeover of Sprint worth about $120 billion - the largest proposed merger to date. U.S. regulators, however, worried the proposed deal would stifle competition in the long-distance and Internet-backbone markets. In June 2000, the DOJ moved to block the merger on antitrust grounds, and the following month Sprint and WorldCom formally called off their plans to merge. Feeling the heat from the telecom meltdown The soft economy, excess network capacity and price wars hit the telecommunications industry hard in 2001. The weak conditions led Sprint to lay off some 11,000 employees, including 6,000 people who lost their jobs when the high- speed network service ION was scrapped, and 3,000 customer service representatives in the Sprint PCS unit. Albeit on a smaller scale, the company continued to reduce its workforce in 2002. The headcount came in at 72,000 at the end of 2002, a drop off of almost 12,000 employees since 2000. Executive shake up To the surprise of many Sprint employees, reports surfaced in early 2003 that chairman William Esrey was