Sprint Receives Domestic Wholesale Best-in-Class Award for Third Year in a Row from ATLANTIC-ACM

OVERLAND PARK, Kan.--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--Sprint (NYSE: S) continues to carry the torch for top-rated customer satisfaction or operational excellence in the competitive arena of wholesale. For the third year in a row, Sprint won the ATLANTIC-ACM 2010 Best-in-Class US Long Haul Wholesale Award for provisioning (tied with another carrier in this category). This recent award adds to a bevy of noteworthy acknowledgements for the company in the wholesale marketplace such as ATLANTIC-ACM’s Global Wholesale Carrier Excellence Award for the category of Best-in-Class Voice Value and the award for Billing (in a tie).

“Sprint’s domestic wholesale customers are pleased with Sprint’s accountability throughout its installation process.”

This three-year winning streak for domestic wholesale underscores Sprint’s leadership in the area of operational excellence – as indicated by past ACM awards. Sprint effectively meets the needs of domestic wholesale partners, particularly by delivering on the contracted date of installation. According to the ATLANTIC-ACM research, Sprint has consistently excelled year-over-year in exceeding customer expectations in wholesale. Furthermore, during the past eight quarters, Sprint has experienced improvement in first call resolution and customer satisfaction in its overall business.

“Sprint Wholesale prides itself on the strong partnerships we form with our customers,” said Dan Dooley, president of Sprint Wholesale Solutions, “and it is wholesale telecommunications customers who speak through these ACM awards. We are honored by these recent acknowledgements and will continue to strive to be the leader in the industry through our ongoing commitment to excellence in all areas – customer service, voice quality and service dependability.”

The ATLANTIC-ACM’s 2010 US Long Haul Wholesale Carrier Report Card asked wholesale customers to rank major U.S. wholesale service providers in categories that include brand, sales representatives, provisioning, network performance, customer service, billing, and numerous product quality and price categories. The overall wholesale customer experience at Sprint was rated well above the industry average. This indicates that survey respondents have a strong perception of Sprint’s network performance for quality and service, and their sales and service representatives. Stemming from research begun in 1995, this analysis has become a critical benchmarking milestone in the competitive long haul industry.

“Consistently earning high scores and positive reviews from customers in this study, Sprint continues to produce a very positive customer experience,” said Fedor Smith, president of ATLANTIC-ACM. “Sprint’s domestic wholesale customers are pleased with Sprint’s accountability throughout its installation process.”

For the past two years, Sprint has also received praise for its international wholesale business. In 2009 and 2010, Sprint was one of the highest scoring carriers in terms of network quality. In 2010, Sprint tied with Telecom Italia as the highest rated carrier for billing and was singled out as the most price competitive carrier for voice products overall. In 2009, Sprint received the ATLANTIC-ACM 2009 Global Wholesale Best in Class Award for Data Product Quality in addition to three ATLANTIC-ACM 2009 Best-in-Class Domestic Wholesale Awards for sales representatives, provisioning (tie) and customer service. Sprint also received the ATLANTIC-ACM 2009 Business Connectivity Carrier Excellence Award for Customer Service (ILEX/IXC) (tied with another carrier in this category) for its leadership in providing quality customer service for business customers using IP-based and converged solutions.

About ATLANTIC-ACM

Boston-based ATLANTIC-ACM is a leading provider of strategic research and consulting services serving the telecommunications and information industries. In addition to producing the industry’s principal benchmarking, sizing and opportunity studies, the company assists clients in evaluating telecommunications opportunities for successful investment, market entry, and long-term planning.

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 48 million customers at the end of the fourth quarter of 2009 and the first 4G service from a national carrier in the United States; industry-leading mobile data services; instant national and international push-to-talk capabilities; and a global Tier 1 Internet backbone. The company’s customer-focused strategy has led to improved first call resolution and customer care satisfaction scores. For more information, visit www.sprint.com.