Sprint Cell Phones

Sprint cell phones are offered by Sprint Corporation, one of the world's largest telecommunication companies. It is a global communications provider and a major competitor in the American cellular phone market, through its Sprint PCS service based on CDMA and PCS, and local telephone service in some smaller markets.

Sprint cell phones are offered nationwide PCS presence with the help of affiliates. These smaller companies, in agreement with Sprint, build Sprint cell phone network infrastructure as well as operate Sprint cell phone retail stores. In exchange, the smaller companies receive usage of the Sprint cell phone brand (Sprint PCS), radio spectrum, customer service and billing. In most cases, these affiliate carriers are transparent to the end user or consumer. Alamosa PCS is the largest of the largest of the Sprint cell phone affiliate carriers, with others including Ubiquitel, Airgate, and Horizon PCS.

Sprint cell phones lead the wireless industry in data adoption with a growing portfolio of Sprint PCS Vision (SM) services supported by a high-speed next generation wireless network that allows customers to communicate, stay informed, be entertained and personalize their Sprint PCS Phone. At the end of 2004, Sprint cell phones served a total of 24.8 million customers on the Sprint Cell Phone Nationwide PCS Network. More than 7.7 million customers were subscribing to Sprint cell phone PCS data services, including 6.2 million Sprint PCS Vision (SM) subscribers.

In 2003, Sprint cell phones were combined with other Sprint business units – local telecom (LTD), long distance/wireline (Global Markets Group), and wireless (PCS) – into a new company, marketing the combined company as "One Sprint". In April 2004, the separately traded Sprint cell phone wireless tracking stock was reabsorbed into the FON ticker. However, the "One Sprint" initiative is essentially dead, with the announced Sprint Nextel merger; Sprint cell phone business was spunoff into a separate company which became Sprint Nextel, while maintaining the long distance and wireless business units into a single company with Nextel.

On December 15, 2004, the Sprint cell phone corporation and NEXTEL announced they would merge to form Sprint Nextel Corporation. While billed as a merger of equals, the transaction was actually the purchase of NEXTEL Communications by the Sprint cell phone corporation. At the time of the merger announcement Sprint cell phones and NEXTEL were the No. 3 and No. 5 leading providers in the US mobile phone industry.

Sprint cell phone corporation shareholders, and NEXTEL shareholders overwhelmingly approved the merger on July 13, 2005. The merger deal was approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and U.S. Department of Justice on August 3, 2005. The FCC placed a condition on the merger that Sprint Nextel is to provide wireless service within the 2.5 GHz band within the next four years. Sprint Nextel was officially formed on August 12, 2005, when the deal was completed.