Sprint wins $3.7M contract from Alabama

From: Kansas City Business Journal, MO - Jan 7, 2004

Sprint won a two-year, $3.7 million contract from Alabama to provide communications services to deaf and hard-of-hearing people in the state, Sprint said Wednesday.

Overland Park-based Sprint (NYSE: FON, PCS) replaces AT&T as Alabama's official provider of telecommunications relay services and will provide almost 137,500 minutes of communications services a month, Sprint said in a written release. The services will be available starting March 1.

Traditional relay services involve a relay operator who serves as an intermediary for phone calls between a deaf user and a person who can hear. The operator speaks words typed by a deaf user on a text telephone or via the Internet and relays the hearing person's spoken response by typing back to the deaf user.

Video relay service uses a similar process but enables the deaf user to communicate in American Sign Language via a computer with a Web camera instead of typing.

Sprint has more than 26 million customers in more than 100 countries. The company employs about 68,000 people worldwide and has almost $27 billion in annual revenue.

The company ranks No. 1 on The Business Journal's list of area public companies.

© 2004 American City Business Journals Inc.