Time Warner joins MCI, Sprint to offer service

Time Warner Cable announced a deal Monday with Sprint Corp. and MCI Inc. to offer phone service using the up-and-coming voice-over-Internet technology, one of the surest signs yet that cable companies are assaulting the local phone industry.

While other cable companies sell phone service to their customers in selected markets, this deal is the first time the “voice-over-IP” technology will power nearly nationwide phone service by a cable company.

The technology will let Time Warner customers make calls with their regular phones, but the calls will travel as packets of data over the cable line that feeds into the house, rather than going through traditional, circuit-based phone wires.

At a switching station, the calls will be transferred to either the MCI or Sprint phone networks and into the traditional format that reaches most phone users. Though the quality of voice-over-IP calls often isn’t quite up to the standard of the traditional telephone networks, the technology is improving.

Trade

EU threatens to sanction U.S. over tax breaks

Days after resolving a trans-Atlantic fight over steel, European Union governments signed off Monday on a threat to start levying sanctions against U.S. products in March in a trade dispute over U.S. export tax breaks.

Foreign ministers voted unanimously without discussion to back the threat from the European Commission, which handles trade talks for the 15-nation bloc.

Starting March 1, the EU will apply a 5 percent tariff on $4 billion worth of U.S. exports and increase the duty by one percentage point each month for a year unless the tax break is removed.

Restaurant

New entrees, hours lift profits at McDonald’s

McDonald’s Corp. extended the recovery in its once-slumping restaurants to an eighth straight month, on Monday reporting a double-digit gain in U.S. same-store sales and a modest improvement in Europe, its second-biggest market.

Systemwide sales from the more than 30,000 McDonald’s-brand restaurants worldwide jumped 14.9 percent from a year earlier as the world’s largest fast-food chain continued to benefit from new products, new marketing, a stronger economy and the dollar’s weakness overseas.

Same-store sales from McDonald’s restaurants open more than a year, a key barometer of performance, rose 6.4 percent from a year earlier. Most notably, comparable sales climbed 10.2 percent at U.S. restaurants.

McDonald’s U.S. sales have been invigorated since last spring by a pair of successful new products — entree-sized salads and McGriddles breakfast sandwiches — and extended hours.