Sprint Corporation is an American telecommunications company that provides wireless services and is an internet service provider. It is the fourth-largest mobile network operator in the United States and serves 54 million customers as of October 2017. The company also offers wireless voice, messaging, and broadband services through its various subsidiaries under the Boost Mobile, Virgin Mobile, and Assurance Wireless brands, and wholesale access to its wireless networks to mobile virtual network operators. The company is headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas. In July 2013, a majority of the company was purchased by Japanese telecommunications company SoftBank Group Corp., although the remaining shares of the company continue to trade on the New York Stock Exchange. Sprint uses CDMA, EvDO and 4G LTE networks.
Sprint traces its origins to the Brown Telephone Company, which was founded in 1899 to bring telephone service to the rural area around Abilene, Kansas. In 2006, Sprint left the local landline telephone business, spinning those assets off into a new company named Embarq, which later became a part of CenturyLink. The company remains one of the largest long-distance providers in the United States.
Until 2005, the company was also known as the Sprint Corporation, but took the name Sprint Nextel Corporation when it merged with Nextel Communications, and adopted its black & yellow color scheme along with a new logo. In 2013, following the shutdown of the Nextel network and concurrent with the acquisition by SoftBank, the company returned to using Sprint Corporation. In July 2013, as part of the SoftBank transactions, Sprint acquired the remaining shares of wireless broadband carrier Clearwire Corporation which it did not already own.
On August 6, 2014, it was announced that CEO Dan Hesse would be replaced by Marcelo Claure, effective August 11, 2014. Claure is the founder and former CEO of wireless supplier Brightstar.Effective May 30, 2018, Michel Combes replaced Marcelo Claure as CEO of Sprint. Claure is now the executive chairman of Sprint, working to get Sprint's planned merger with rival T-Mobile through regulatory proceedings.