Verizon test-marketing ‘flexible’ phone device

Phone companies are still struggling to figure out how to embrace the wireless revolution — but at least they’re trying.

Verizon Communications Inc., the nation’s biggest phone company, said it was test-marketing a hybrid device that works as a standard cordless phone in the house and as a cell phone when its owner leaves home.

The phone is designed to reflect the increased flexibility people want in their calling services, said Verizon spokeswoman Briana Gowing.

The phone is expected to sell for less than $200 and would be available first to people in certain apartment complexes served by Verizon’s Avenue unit.

The phone, made by San Diego-based Axesstel Inc., includes several common features such as caller ID, call waiting and a 99-number contact book.

Career

Malpractice concerns ail doctors, survey finds

Physicians are not a pleased bunch these days, according to a survey of new doctors. Nearly a quarter of them, 24 percent, said they would choose another field if they could begin their careers anew.

Two years ago, only 5 percent of doctors said the same, according to the poll by a Dallas-based physician search and consulting firm, Merritt, Hawkins & Associates.

More than 60 percent said malpractice concerns were clouding their careers, up from 15 percent in the 2001 poll. Also, that same percentage said the issue of coping with managed care and other insurers had become troublesome to them, up from 25 percent in the previous survey.

The irony, however, remains a truly solid job market for new doctors, noted Joseph Hawkins, the firm’s CEO. Almost 70 percent of residents said they had received 51 or more job offers, and more than 40 percent said they had fielded more than 100.

Motley Fool

Name that company

I was founded in Ontario, Canada, as a trucking service company in 1924. Today I’m a holding company for North America’s largest providers of school and inter-city bus transport, municipal transit, ambulance transportation and hospital emergency department management services. I’m in the tour bus business, too. I employ nearly 100,000 people and take in more than $4 billion per year. In the ’90s I shed my solid waste and hazardous waste management divisions and bought Greyhound Lines. I filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2001 and aim to emerge from it this year. Who am I?