so absorbed SNET (Southern New England Telecommunications), Sterling Commerce and Prodigy. As of 2004, SBC had about 60 million phone lines in 13 states and held telecommunications investments in another 25 countries. It also owns a 60 percent stake in Cingular Wireless, making it the second largest wireless carrier in the United States, with 49 million wireless customers. Going long SBC debuted its long-distance service in July 2000, when the FCC allowed SBC to offer the service in Texas. By 2001, SBC had won FCC clearance to offer long- distance service in all five of the original Southwestern Bell states (Texas, Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma). SBC won approval for long-distance service in California and Nevada in 2002, and the rest of its 13-state region in 2003. 126 VAULT LIBRARY CAREER 2005 Vault Inc. Vault Guide to the Top Telecom Employers SBC Communications Inc. Broad-banding out After the 1999 merger with Ameritech, SBC began Project Pronto, a $6 billion upgrade to its fiber-optic lines and related DSL connections. In 2001, SBC bought Prodigy Communications, an Internet service provider with 3.6 million subscribers nationwide and the largest number of high-speed DSL customers in the United States. In late 2002, SBC launched a co-branded service with Yahoo! Inc. providing broadband access for millions of customers throughout SBC's service area. Through Project Pronto, SBC companies have made DSL service available to 39 million homes and small businesses, or 77 percent of its customer locations. In 2003, SBC announced an initiative to deploy more than 20,000 Wi-Fi (wireless, high-speed Internet access) hot spots in 6,000 venues throughout the nation by the end of 2006. SBC is also leveraging its relationship with Cingular Wireless to create an integrated Wi-Fi and third-generation (3G) wireless service that combines the strengths and benefits of Wi-Fi hot spots and wireless, high-speed data services. SBC most recently announced a plan - dubbed "Project Lightspeed" - to enable residential customer