 had previously laid off about 1,000 employees in February 2001, in the VAULT CAREER LIBRARY 2005 Vault Inc. Vault Guide to the Top Telecom Employers ALLTEL Corporation wake of weak sales for 2000 and because the company did not meet its goal for signing up new customers. Legal issues In March 2004, ALLTEL filed a federal lawsuit against the state of Kentucky's Public Service Commission, (PSC), challenging a provision of the 1996 Telecommunications Act which requires established phone companies to allow competitive carriers to use their networks at a discounted rate. The suit is challenging a December 2003 PSC order that required ALLTEL to sell to SouthEast, a carrier in 35 counties in Eastern and Central Kentucky with about 10,000 telephone subscribers. ALLTEL is arguing that it shouldn't have to provide network services for SouthEast because the company already has its own switches. As of April, the PSC has rejected ALLTEL's arguments, but the company's fight continues. Naming rights ALLTEL jumped into the trend of corporate-named sports arenas in August 1995 when the National Football League's Jacksonville Jaguars moved into their new stadium, ALLTEL Stadium, a 76,877-seat facility in Jacksonville, Fla. (Ironically, the company announced in February 2004 that it will no longer offer local service in Jacksonville as of July 2004. The company had been providing service in the Jacksonville area since 1992.) In October 1999 the company christened ALLTEL Arena, an 18,000 seat multi-purpose facility in Little Rock, Ark. The arena is the home court for the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Trojans basketball and the Arkansas Twisters Arena Football team. The state of Arkansas contributed $20 million to the building of the facility, while ALLTEL contributed an additional $7 million for the naming rights of the arena. GETTING HIRED Hiring process The company offers a full range of information and job searching capabilities on its career site, alltel.com/career/index.html. Job hunters can search for open positions b