Sprint Accelerates Progress on America’s Newest Network, Delivering Faster 4G LTE Speeds to 225 Million People and 41 New Cities

OVERLAND PARK, Kan., April 29, 2014 - Sprint today announced that its all-new network offers 4G LTE service in 41 more cities. Sprint 4G LTE now covers more than 225 million people and remains on track to cover 250 million by mid-year. Sprint Spark™, an enhanced LTE service delivering peak wireless speeds of 60Mbps, is available in six new cities, and is expected to cover 100 million people by year-end.

4G LTE data speeds are now available to more customers in such locations as Long Island, N.Y., Minneapolis, and Phoenix. Customers in Newark, N.J.; Oakland, Calif.; Orlando, Fla.; Tacoma, Wash.; Waukegan, Ill.; and West Palm Beach, Fla. will also now benefit from even faster data speeds with the availability of Sprint Spark.

“We’re making great progress on Network Vision and customers are pleased with the faster data speeds and crystal clear voice calls,” said John Saw, chief network officer at Sprint. “Today our network is delivering significantly better service. Furthermore, it’s a strong foundation for tomorrow – a time will ultimately come when customer demands for bandwidth, and technology changes with 4G and beyond, will require the kind of platform we now have in place.”

Sprint Spark is an enhanced LTE service that’s built for data and designed to deliver peak wireless speeds of 60Mbps today on capable devices, with the potential for speeds three times as fast by late next year.1 Sprint offers 14 Sprint Spark-enabled devices, including the recently launched Samsung Galaxy S® 5 and HTC One (M8). With its unique combination of network technologies, spectrum capacity and tri-band devices, Sprint Spark is designed to greatly improve the performance of video and other bandwidth-intensive applications. It enables stutter-free video chat on-the-go and mobile gaming that leaves lag behind.

Sprint’s all-new network also includes HD Voice in many cities today, with nationwide availability expected by mid-year. HD Voice is a new Sprint standard for crystal-clear voice calls. It provides a fuller, more natural-sounding voice, plus noise-cancelling technology that virtually eliminates background noise from places like a busy road or crowded restaurant. 2

Sprint 4G LTE is available in 443 cities. Sprint Spark is available in the following 24 cities: Austin, Texas; Baltimore; Chicago; Dallas; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Fort Worth, Texas; Houston; Jacksonville, Fla.; Kansas City, Kan./Mo.; Los Angeles; Miami; New York; Newark, N.J.; Oakland, Calif.; Orlando, Fla.; Philadelphia; Provo, Utah; Salt Lake City; San Antonio; Tacoma, Wash.; Tampa, Fla.; Trenton, N.J.; Waukegan, Ill.; and West Palm Beach, Fla.

Sprint Framily Plan and Virgin Mobile Broadband2Go

Innovation at Sprint is not limited to advances with the network. Customers with Sprint Spark-enabled devices can select the new Sprint FramilySM Plan – a pricing program available to new and existing customers. The more people added to the group, up to 10 phone lines, the greater the savings for everyone on the plan. Build a group of at least seven people and everyone gets unlimited talk, text and 1GB of data for $25 per month per line (pricing excludes taxes and surcharges). For only $20 per month per line, Sprint Framily Plan members can buy up to unlimited data, and they are eligible for a new phone every year. Unlimited features are while on the Sprint network.

Customers of Sprint’s prepaid brands – including Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile USA – also benefit from the enhancements to the 3G, 4G LTE and Sprint Spark services. Both brands offer a number of 4G LTE devices and Virgin Mobile now offers the NETGEAR® Mingle™ Mobile Hotspot, the first Sprint Spark device available for U.S. prepaid customers.

CONTACT(S):

Media: 
Sprint
, Adrienne Norton, 425-256-7014
, adrienne.norton@sprint.com

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. & SAN DIEG, April 08, 2014 - For some people, a smartphone just isn’t a necessity. Sprint, Boost Mobile and Kyocera recognize this and are meeting these consumers’ needs with the launch of Kyocera Verve, an easy-to-use feature phone with a slide-out QWERTY keypad. Kyocera Verve is perfect for power texters, and its advanced accessibility features offer text-to-voice translation making it ideal for vision-impaired users.

Kyocera Verve is available in pink and gray colors on Friday, April 11 in Sprint direct-ship sales channels, Web (www.sprint.com) and Telesales (1-800-SPRINT1). With Sprint Easy Pay, well-qualified buyers can purchase the Kyocera Verve with $0 down (plus tax) and 24 monthly payments of only $5.42. A navy-blue version will be available without a contract at Boost Mobile beginning Tuesday, May 6 for $49.99 at Boost Mobile’s exclusive retail stores, select independent wireless dealer locations nationwide and at www.boostmobile.com with free shipping. Additionally, Sprint will make the handset available on its payLo brand with the name Kyocera Contact beginning Tuesday, May 13 for $39.99.

Several ways to pay

Customers who activate Kyocera Verve will have access to the Sprint Framily Plan, a pricing program available to new and existing customers that lets them decide who they consider family. The more people added to the group, up to 10 phone lines, the greater the savings for everyone on the plan.

For one line of service, new Sprint customers pay $55 per month per line for unlimited talk, text and 1GB of data while on the Sprint network (excluding taxes and surcharges). For each additional new Sprint customer who joins the Framily group, the cost per person goes down $5 a month up to a maximum monthly discount of $30 per line. For only $20 per month per line, Sprint Framily Plan members can buy up to unlimited data while on the Sprint network, and they are eligible to get a new phone every year.

Additionally, Kyocera Verve is available on Boost Mobile’s popular no-annual-contract $50 Monthly Unlimited plan with Shrinking Payments. For every six on-time payments, the cost of Boost Mobile’s Monthly Unlimited plan shrinks by $5 eventually getting down to as low as $35 a month for unlimited nationwide, talk, text and data1. Payments do not need to be consecutive to qualify for the next saving milestone.

For those who do not need a smartphone but instead just want great value for talk and messaging with a stylish device, Verve will be available on payLo by Virgin Mobile under a different name, Kyocera Contact, with plans for as little as $20 per month for 400 minutes.2 Ideal for the budget-conscious wireless user, payLo is available at independent dealers and nationwide retailers including Best Buy, RadioShack and Target.

"Sprint is focused on offering our customers devices a variety of features and options to meet their needs and Kyocera Verve is a great example of an affordable and accessible device for those looking for a basic yet useful phone,” said David Owens, senior vice president-Product Development, Sprint. “We are proud to offer Kyocera Verve for Sprint customers with our award-winning accessibility Sprint ID application bundles as well as making it available on our prepaid brands, Boost Mobile and payLo.”

As the latest addition to Sprint’s product portfolio designed to ensure accessibility for all, Kyocera Verve features expanded text-to-speech capabilities for menus, messaging, Web browsing, contacts, notifications and more.

According to the National Federation of the Blind, more than 6.5 million people reported a visual disability in 2011.3 Other accessibility features include high-contrast user-interface options and large menu fonts to accommodate a variety of vision ranges, dedicated In Case of Emergency (ICE) and 911 shortcuts, and tactile numeric and QWERTY keyboards with well-defined buttons.

“With updated voice translation and text-to-speech features, we're excited to offer the Kyocera Verve as an easy-to-use feature phone, that won’t require an additional data plan, for both prepaid and postpaid customers,” said Eric Anderson, senior vice president and general manager of global sales and marketing at Kyocera Communications. “The traditional QWERTY keypad still has a strong following and we’ll continue to support those consumers looking for affordable and simple, yet stylish devices.”

Kyocera Verve brings customers a CDMA2000® 1X-Advanced slider phone featuring a 2.4-inch TN-TFT QVGA display. Capturing quick snapshots is easy with Verve's 2-megapixel camera with 2x zoom and dedicated function key. Calls can be taken over Bluetooth® wireless technology (2.1 with Enhanced Data Rate), via the 3.5mm headset jack or through the speakerphone with dedicated function key.

For more information on the Kyocera Verve, visit www.kyocera-wireless.com/verve/.

CONTACT(S):

Media Contacts:


Sprint/Boost Mobile, 
Nichole Pichardo, 949-748-3364,
nichole.pichardo@sprint.com


or


Kyocera Communications Inc., 
John Chier, 858-882-3543
, john.chier@kyocera.com