Sprint Is Ahead in the Wireless Dash

''Hello, Internet'' (Special Report, May 3) was an enlightening overview of wireless data and Third Generation wireless technology. We were very pleased to see wireless data technology and phones positioned as the cutting-edge communications service of the future and to read an in-depth review of the role these products and services will play in the Internet world.

However, let me set the record straight on wireless sales results. Contrary to what you stated, Sprint PCS continues to set industry records in quarterly sales of wireless phones and has outsold AT&T and all others for three consecutive quarters. Our goal is to take the world of wireless devices to the masses, offering clear wireless connections for everyday use, for everyone. With our industry-leading sales figures, we are well on our way to accomplishing this goal.

Andrew J. Sukawaty, CEO
Sprint PCS
Kansas City, Mo.

Editors' note: BUSINESS WEEK agrees that Sprint is adding more customers than AT&T.

Brazil Doesn't Warm to Half-Baked Advice

''The men running Brazil still don't get it'' (Economic Viewpoint, May 3) by Professor Robert J. Barro throws ridicule not only on the author and his editorial vehicle but on the Harvard University economics department itself. The government of Rio Grande do Sul hasn't ''repudiated'' the contracts with Ford Co. and General Motors Corp. It was simply decided to renegotiate contracts inherited from a previous administration that contained conditions the multinationals had every right to try and go for but which, upon due reflection, the new state government had every right to reject.

As a vector of economic progress, the auto industry has already had its day--look at the wake of urban dereliction the industry leaves behind it, e.g. in Detroit or in our own industrial region, just outside Sao Paulo. This, rather than any suddenly blossoming intellectual affinities with North Korean economic thought, is probably what led the Rio Grande do Sul government to reconsider the contracts.

A.V.G. Hahn
Sao Paulo

Now, I understand Robert Barro's problems with Brazil. In 1995, he said at a lecture at the London School of Economics that Brazil and India would have slow economic growth because they are democracies, and democracy is not the most appropriate political system for developing countries.

The implications were two. First, authoritarian models such as Asia's were superior, and we have witnessed how wrong he was. Second, that Brazil should go back to a dictatorship. He simply didn't say whether the U.S. was ready to send in the Marines to support a new coup d'etat.

Brazil doesn't want to dollarize its economy for the simple reason that we intend to maintain full independence. Our economy is one-tenth as big as the U.S. economy, we are at a different point of the economic cycle, we obviously don't have the same productivity, and most of our trade is with Europe, not with the U.S.

The suggestion he made--that Domingo Cavallo should be Finance Minister of Brazil--is outrageous and only shows his political ignorance about Latin America. You simply don't play two strong regional powers (Brazil and Argentina) against each other. The suggestion that Brazil will never have the fiscal discipline to have a stable currency amounts to economic imperialism and racial prejudice. I wonder if he has looked back to the Asian model before unrepentantly bashing Brazil. We are recovering much faster than the Asians.

Nelson Franco Jobim
Correspondent, Jornal do Brasil
London

An Economy Too Competitive for Its Own Good

Federal Reserve Chief Alan Greenspan apparently believes a ''technology-driven productivity boom'' has kept inflation quiescent despite tight labor markets and rising wages (''The Fed's new rule book,'' News: Analysis & Commentary, May 3). With all due respect to the chairman, I disagree. I believe the current lack of inflation is primarily caused by intense competition in many sectors of the economy, which has severely limited the ability of most companies to exercise pricing discipline on their markets.

I find the macroeconomic situation to be especially ominous: intense competition coupled with rising labor costs and great industrial overcapacity. If demand falters for any reason (for example, if a stock market drop were to cause consumers to reduce spending), the fixed costs associated with overcapacity will have a swift and severe negative impact on corporate earnings. Corporate restructurings would soon follow, in the traditional forms of layoffs, mergers, etc. In other words, the New Economy would look a lot like the old economy.

Technology has undoubtedly helped many companies to absorb cost increases and minimize the impact on profit margins. However, were it not for the dangerous combination of intense competition and overcapacity, most companies would raise prices in a heartbeat.

Paul M. Green
Cincinnati

Sweatshop Pay Could Easily Be Raised

In an otherwise perceptive article, you raise fears about the dangers of increasing the wages of sweatshop workers (''Sweatshop reform: How to solve the standoff,'' Social Issues, May 3). But where is the research supporting these scares? During his mid-April visit to Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji said that, of the $120 retail cost of a pair of athletic shoes made in China, only $2 goes to the Chinese workers who assemble them. The New York-based National Labor Committee has calculated the labor cost to assemble a $90 pair of Nike sneakers to be approximately $1.20. Either way, these overseas workers earn so little that just a penny added to each dollar of unit labor costs could increase the worker's pay by more than 50%.

Dispute these figures, if you will. But dispute them with firsthand research of the wage costs in a given unit of production, not on the basis of industrywide averages of hourly compensation costs and productivity indexes drawn from national accounts. These figures do not reveal how little a sweatshop worker earns for each garment, cap, doll, or toy he or she makes.

No wonder the leaders of low-wage countries argue against a standard requiring a decent wage. Rather than pricing themselves out of the market, as they claim, it would deprive them and their business collaborators of one way to swindle workers, most of them vulnerable young women.

Robert A. Senser
Editor, Human Rights for Workers
Reston, Va.

In Customer Service, Asia Is Still Stumbling

''Asia: How real its recovery?'' (International Business, May 3) focused on the factors underlying the upsurge in confidence. However, you left out customer service, often forgotten in times of turmoil. Unless some Asian companies restore credibility to their services, which make unsubstantiated claims with their condescending attitudes towards pleasing the customer, these organizations will fail in the next millennium.

Take the Malaysian mobile phone operator Maxis, which recently sold a one-third stake to British Telecom PLC. From Maxis' toll-free number, which is hardly ever answered, to its billing system, which sends out bills three months late, it has exposed itself to a weakness that rivals can take advantage of.

Chye Kit Siew
Kuala Lumpur

''Power drain'' (In Business This Week, May 17)

''Power drain'' (In Business This Week, May 17) misidentified Credit Suisse First Boston analyst Ivy Zelman.

''Can Japan get back in the wireless game?'' (Special Report, May 3)

''Can Japan get back in the wireless game?'' (Special Report, May 3) should have stated that NTT DoCoMo plans to start offering Third Generation wireless services in Japan by March, 2001.