<p>Sprint Corp. said Friday that it has reached a "verbal" agreement with rival BellSouth Corp. that allows both companies to again display customer names on each others' Caller ID services.</p><p>Sprint filed suit against BellSouth in December claiming that BellSouth violated a contract to display the names of Sprint customers on its Caller ID through the end of the year.</p><p>Sprint, based in Overland Park, Kan., receives a fee for each name displayed. The company said it would suffer $20 million in damages if BellSouth didn't honor the agreement.</p><p>Sprint spokesman Scott Stoffel said the two sides reached a verbal agreement last month and are working on a written agreement.</p><p>"It's in progress and we hope to finalize it as soon as possible," he said.</p><p>Financial terms of the deal were confidential, he said.</p><p>Atlanta-based BellSouth, which initially said it was complying with the contract, declined to discuss specifics Friday.</p><p>"I can't confirm that a final settlement has been reached," said spokesman Joe Chandler.</p><p>The two companies share customer names and numbers through a database started in 1996. Each company accesses the other company's database, displaying the name of the caller on Caller ID. As part of the agreement, each company pays the other a fee to use the database, believed to be a few pennies per call.</p><p>Sprint filed a similar suit against SBC Communications Inc. in January 2003. That case is continuing, Stoffel said.</p>
