Description of Operations

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2011


Note 1.	Description of Operations

Sprint Nextel Corporation, including its consolidated subsidiaries, (“Sprint,” “we,” “us,” “our” or the “Company”) is a communications company offering a comprehensive range of wireless and wireline communications products and services that are designed to meet the needs of individual consumers, businesses, government subscribers and resellers. We have organized our operations to meet the needs of our targeted subscriber groups through focused communications solutions that incorporate the capabilities of our wireless and wireline services. As a result of the acquisition of Virgin Mobile USA, Inc. (Virgin Mobile) on November 24, 2009 and iPCS, Inc. (iPCS) on December 4, 2009, the operations of Virgin Mobile and iPCS are consolidated prospectively from their respective acquisition dates.

The Wireless segment includes retail, wholesale, and affiliate service revenue from a wide array of wireless voice and data transmission services and equipment revenue from the sale of wireless devices and accessories in the U.S., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The Wireline segment includes revenue from domestic and international wireline voice and data communication services, including services to the cable multiple systems operators that resell our local and long distance services and use our back office systems and network assets in support of their telephone service provided over cable facilities primarily to residential end-user subscribers.

Sprint's fourth generation (4G) technology capabilities currently exist through our mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) wholesale relationship with Clearwire Corporation and its consolidated subsidiary, Clearwire Communications LLC (together, "Clearwire"), in which we own a 51.5% non-controlling economic interest. Sprint and other investors are offering 4G services that utilize Clearwire's 4G Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) technology in available markets. The services supported by this technology give subscribers with compatible devices high-speed access to the Internet and a variety of sophisticated data services (See note 3). In addition, in October 2011, we announced our intention to deploy Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology as part of our network modernization plan, Network Vision.