Sprint Nextel Corporation (nyse: S) is a telecommunications company, based in Overland Park, Kansas. The company owns and operates the third largest wireless telecommunications network in the United States, with 49 million customers, behind Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility. Sprint is a global Internet carrier and makes up a portion of the Internet backbone. In the United States, the company also operates the third largest wireless broadband network and is the third largest long distance provider.

The company was created in 2005 by the $35 billion purchase of Nextel Communications by Sprint Corporation. In 2006, the company spun off its local landline telephone business, naming it Embarq. The company also completed the $6.5 billion acquisition of Nextel Partners, one of its largest affiliates, which primarily provides Nextel wireless services to more rural markets.

Sprint also operates and maintains DCSNet, the U.S. Federal Government's private surveillance network.

United Telecom

The core of the present day Sprint-Nextel Corporation was founded in 1898 by Cleyson Leroy Brown and Carlos Florendo, Jr. under the name of the Brown Telephone Company, in the small town of Abilene, Kansas. Brown Telephone was a landline telephone company operating as a competitor to the Bell System.

In 1938, after emerging from bankruptcy, Brown changed its name to United Utilities. The company grew steadily through acquisitions and, in 1972, changed its name to United Telecommunications, at which time it provided local telephone service in many areas of the Midwest and South. United Telecom also operated many other types of business.

In 1980 United Telecom launched a national X.25 data service, Uninet. To enter the long-distance voice market, United Telecom acquired ISACOMM in 1981 and US Telephone in 1984. In 1983 United Telecom began offering cellular telephone services in their territories under the brand name Telespectrum.

GTE Sprint

Southern Pacific Communications Company (SPC), a unit of the Southern Pacific Railroad, began providing long-distance telephone service after the Execunet II decision late in 1978. SPC was headquartered in Burlingame, California (where Sprint still maintains a technology lab, on Adrian Ct.)

The Railroad had an extensive microwave communications system along its rights of way used for internal communications; later (after the Execunet II decision) they expanded by laying fiber optic cables along the same rights of way. In 1972, they began selling surplus capacity on that system to corporations for use as Private Lines, thereby circumventing AT&T's then-monopoly on public telephony. Prior attempts at offering long distance voice services had not been approved by the Federal Communications Commission, although a fax service (called SpeedFAX) was permitted.