By Kevin Fitchard
New Sprint CEO Dan Hesse’s former company, Embarq, is the latest to abandon its reseller deal with Sprint. Embarq’s chief financial officer told an analyst conference Wednesday that its wireless operations failed to meet the company’s expectations, attracting only 112,000 customers in two years, forcing Embarq to stop sales and likely shut down the operation next year.

“It was becoming apparent we wouldn’t obtain enough wireless customers to make a big difference,” CFO Gene Betts said. “Originally we hoped to get around a million customers, and it’s becoming clear we’re not to come close to that.”

When Embarq spun off from Sprint in 2006, it signed the mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) deal with its former parent, allowing it to market its own service plans under the Embarq name though using the Sprint network and devices. While sunsetting the service, Embarq isn’t shutting it off entirely. Betts said it would continue to sell its remaining inventory of phones to customers, but once they are gone, stop sales entirely. Existing customers are still profitable, so they will remain under the Embarq umbrella at least until 2009, when the company will weigh whether transferring them back over to Sprint.