Sprint
See sprints for the running term.
Sprint is one of the world's largest telecommunication companies.
History
Southern Pacific Communications (SPC) , a unit of the Southern Pacific Railroad began offering their
dial-up service shortly after the Execunet II decision late in 1978. The Railroad had extensive right-of-way that could be used to lay long-distance communications. Prior attempts at offering long distance service were disapproved by the Federal Communications Commission. (Only SpeedFAX service had been permitted). While according to company employees "Sprint", a name chosen by contest, never really meant anything, the first three letters are SPR, the same as the railroad. According to some employees, Sprint originally stood for, "Southern Pacific Railroad Information Network."
Sprint was purchased by GTE in 1983. In 1986, Sprint was merged with US Telecom (the long distance arm of United Telecom) to form US Sprint. This was a partnership owned by GTE and United Telecom. In 1989 United Telecom purchased controlling interest in US Sprint. In 1991 United Telecom completed its acquisition of US Sprint. That same year Unitied Telecom changed its name to Sprint (dropping the US).
In 1899, Cleyson Brown founded the Brown Telephone Company in the small town of Abilene, Kansas. That company changed its name to United Telecommunications in 1972. In 1986, the company launched its long distance services under the Sprint brandname.
Current markets
Currently, Sprint is a major competitor in the American cellular phone market, through its Sprint PCS service based on the CDMA wireless standard and operating on the PCS 1900 MHz frequency. It is also a Tier 1 internet service provider.
Sprint maintains its nationwide PCS presence with the help of Affiliates. In most cases, these affiliate carriers are transparent to the end user or consumer. Alamosa PCS is the largest of the affiliate carriers.
Corporate headquarters
The Sprint Corporation is based out of Overland Park, Kansas. Its corporate headquarters is commonly known as the "Sprint Campus." To most of the people that work on the Sprint campus or have seen it, the campus resembles that of a college Ivy League campus. The Sprint campus has approximately 4 million square feet (400,000 m²) of office space and houses about 14,500 Sprint employees. Although it covers 240 acres, the Sprint campus is less than half the size of the DaimlerChrysler Technology Center (504 acres) or the GM Tech Center (640+ acres, 20,000 employees), which are both located near Detroit, Michigan.
