US service provider Embarq is to wind down its mobile reseller agreement with Sprint, citing poor customer take-up. The company’s CFO Gene Betts, speaking at an analyst conference this week, said that Embarq would retain its existing mobile customer base for this year but would look to transfer subscribers to a mobile operator in 2009. Embarq stopped marketing the service at the beginning of the year after reportedly attracting only 112,000 customers by year-end 2007, well short of its original 1 million target.

Embarq is Sprint’s second wholesale customer this month to announce it is leaving the network: fixed-line operator Qwest announced earlier that it is to switch its 800,000 mobile customers from Sprint to Verizon Wireless by the end of this year. However, it is not yet known which operator will inherit Embarq’s mobile customers.