Hi Michael, thanks for calling me out on that. I'll have to dig further.
Phone Words is the "marketing name" and I think Phone Names was the holding company. At one time it was called 1300 Australia.
Telstra and other carriers still bill and rent these names or you can buy them directly from ACMA.
In the early days there was a bit of a gold rush on "smart names" and 1300 Aust brought up some key properties that they retained ownership of and rented. So in this way they changed a single transaction into an annuity. Smart eh?
See this old SMH story
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national...ls-big-business/2005/09/15/1126750082602.html
I assumed that this former Telstra JV was what Sprint had acquired. It would be quite a mature business now. I'll have to do more digging now since I am curious.
So thanks for the follow up.
