News Release

OVERLAND PARK, Kan.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun. 17, 2009-- On June 16, Sprint (NYSE:S) received a Global Telecoms Business Innovation Award in the category of Business Service Innovation – Unified Services Enablement specific to how Sprint enables Unified Communications (UC). The Global Telecoms Business Innovation Awards are designed to honor innovative projects involving telecoms operators and service providers around the world, in association with their vendors and suppliers.

Sprint recently announced how it is enabling unified communications to help businesses and government agencies increase productivity and customer satisfaction while driving down costs. Sprint is collaborating with industry leaders Cisco, IBM and Microsoft to deliver end-to-end solutions. Unified communications solutions integrate day-to-day communication tools such as email, voicemail, instant messaging, calendars, fax, and audio/video conferencing into a single platform and a common user experience.

“We’re honored that Global Telecoms Business has recognized our innovative approach to enabling unified communications,” said Paget Alves, president of Sprint’s Business Markets Group. “The power of unified communications is in mobility and our vision is to extend all UC tools to the mobile environment, making them accessible to users virtually anywhere, anytime. Sprint’s unique wireless and wireline network assets make us uniquely qualified to integrate mobility unlike any other company can.”

Sprint’s strategy reflects the company’s ability to enable its partners’ unified communications services with best-in-class convergence solutions, including:

• Sprint Global MPLS – A robust network that supports real-time applications and provides a unique foundation for enabling unified communications.
• Sprint SIP Trunking – A solution that operates over the Sprint Global MPLS network and integrates local and LD services over a single trunk for multiple locations and applications. This solution can substantially reduce business voice local, long-distance and calling feature charges.
• Sprint Mobile Integration – A unique solution that enables users to fully integrate their Sprint CDMA phones with the unified communications environment, extending desktop phone capabilities to mobile phones.

“We were impressed by the quality and number of nominations this year — the most we have ever had — so it was a special triumph to be one of the winners this year. This was an outstanding project and well deserves its award,” said Alan Burkitt-Gray, editor, Global Telecoms Business. “The industry is seeing a wave of innovation that is making a huge difference — to the companies working in the industry and to all of us in business and as consumers.”

Sprint’s enablement of unified communications is available through Sprint’s newly formed Business Markets Group (BMG). Composed of more than 4,000 sales, support, marketing and operations personnel, BMG is solely dedicated to enterprise, general business and public sector customers. BMG delivers wireless, wireline and converged solutions for companies, drawing on the nation’s most dependable 3G mobile broadband network,* 4G capabilities that are well ahead of Sprint’s competition, the fastest national push-to-talk network,** and a comprehensive solutions portfolio of devices and applications.

For more information on Sprint converged solutions, visit www.sprint.com/convergence or contact your Sprint account team. To join in the latest discussions and learn more about business solutions available through wireline convergence, visit the Seamless Enterprise at www.seamlessenterprise.com.

ABOUT SPRINT NEXTEL

Sprint Nextel offers a comprehensive range of wireless and wireline communications services bringing the freedom of mobility to consumers, businesses and government users. Sprint Nextel is widely recognized for developing, engineering and deploying innovative technologies, including two wireless networks serving more than 49 million customers at the end of the first quarter of 2009; industry-leading mobile data services; instant national and international push-to-talk capabilities; and a global Tier 1 Internet backbone. For more information, visit www.sprint.com.

*”Dependable” based on independent, third-party drive tests for 3G data connection success, session reliability and signal strength for the 50 most populous markets, January 2008 – February 2009. Not all services available on 3G and coverage may default to separate network when 3G unavailable.

**“Fastest” based on initial call set-up time.

Source: Sprint

Sprint
Stephanie Greenwood, 913-794-3658
stephanie.greenwood@sprint.com