Wireless service

Sprint offers guarantees to business customers

Sprint Corp. is putting its money where its network is.

The Overland Park, Kan.-based telecom will announce today that it will offer service-level agreements to new and renewing business wireless subscribers guaranteeing that if they have more than minimal problems with voice service, up to 30 percent of that month’s recurring charges are free.

Brownlee Thomas, a telecommunications analyst for Boston-based Forrester Research, said such agreements were not new in the industry, although they were usually negotiated for favored, large customers and not offered on a general basis like Sprint’s.

Charge accounts

GE Consumer Finance, Dillard’s strike deal

Dillard’s Inc. said Sunday it had agreed to sell Dillard National Bank, which handles credit cards for the department store chain, to GE Consumer Finance for about $1.25 billion.

According to an announcement from the Little Rock-based Dillard’s, GE Consumer Finance will assume $400 million in liabilities, purchase the owned-account receivables and pay an undisclosed premium.

The transaction has been approved by both companies but is subject to regulatory review, Dillard’s said.

Agriculture

California adopts rules to reduce manure smog

Southern California’s smog-fighting agency went after emissions of the bovine variety Friday, adopting the nation’s first rules to reduce air pollution from dairy cow manure.

“Emissions from that manure contribute to ozone and fine particulate pollution, which must be reduced to meet federal health-based air quality standards,” said Barry Wallerstein, executive director of the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

The new rule requires dairies with at least 50 cows to remove manure from corrals more frequently, and send it to a composting facility or an area where it is approved for use as a fertilizer.