Phone firms fighting to keep callers

AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and Qwest Communications International Inc., the three biggest U.S. home-phone companies, are working together for the first time to keep customers away from cable providers.

Subscribers moving to an area served by a different carrier will be referred to movearoo.com, a website that offers help in switching service, AT&T marketing executive Frank Mona said. The site doesn’t show digital phone service from cable companies.

The partnership is designed to help the phone companies hang on to subscribers at a time when they are most likely to consider switching to cable providers such as Comcast Corp. About 60% of customers reevaluate which services they use when they move, according to Dallas-based AT&T.

Comcast and Time Warner Cable Inc. are luring customers by packaging TV service with phone lines and Internet access. AT&T, the biggest of the phone providers, lost 4.9% of its primary home-phone lines in 2007, ending the year with 31 million.

The cable industry started a similar website in 2006 and has offered a hotline to connect customers to providers in new areas since 2003.

“During a move, customers reevaluate everything,” Mona said.

WhiteFence, a Houston-based company that runs comparison-shopping sites, will operate movearoo.com. Customers can also use the site to set up gas and electric service, subscribe to newspapers and request price quotes for movers.