Sprint - Nextel 2005 Annual Report Download - page 18

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Wireless Network Technologies
CDMA Network
We provide our Sprint-branded wireless services over our CDMA network, an all-digital wireless network with
spectrum licenses that allow us to provide service to the entire United States population, Puerto Rico and the U.S.
Virgin Islands. The CDMA network uses a single frequency band and a digital spread-spectrum wireless
technology that allows a large number of users to access a single frequency band by assigning a code to all voice
and data bits, sending a scrambled transmission of the encoded bits over the air and reassembling the voice and
data into its original format. We supplement the CDMA network through commercial affiliation arrangements
with the PCS Affiliates. Under these arrangements, the PCS Affiliates offer wireless services under the Sprint
brand on CDMA networks built and operated at their own expense. In most instances, the PCS Affiliates use
spectrum licensed to, and controlled by, us. Following the acquisitions of US Unwired, Gulf Coast Wireless, and
IWO Holdings, completed in 2005, and the acquisitions of Alamosa and Enterprise Communications completed
in early 2006, there are five remaining PCS Affiliates with networks that collectively serve markets where about
23.3 million people live or work.
We, together with the PCS Affiliates, operate CDMA networks in over 400 metropolitan markets, including the
125 largest U.S. metropolitan areas, that reach where a quarter billion people live and work. We provide
nationwide service through a combination of:
• operating our own digital network in both major and smaller U.S. metropolitan areas, and rural connecting
routes using CDMA technology;
• affiliating under commercial arrangements with the remaining PCS Affiliates, each of which operates a
CDMA network, mainly in and around smaller U.S. metropolitan areas;
• roaming on other providers’ analog cellular networks using multi-mode and multi-band handsets; and
• roaming on other providers’ digital networks that use CDMA.
CDMA subscribers can use their phones through roaming agreements in countries other than the United States,
including areas of:
• Asia, including China, Guam, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Thailand;
• New Zealand;
• Canada;
• Central and South America, including Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Paraguay,
Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela; and
• most major Caribbean islands.
We are in the process of deploying the high-speed EV-DO technology across our CDMA network. With peak
rates of up to 2.4 megabits per second for downloads, EV-DO increases average mobile-device data speeds up to
10 times faster when compared to the prior generation technology. In addition, this technology delivers superior
application and service performance on EV-DO-capable handsets and laptops equipped with EV-DO-enabled
Sprint PCS Connection Cards™. The services supported by this technology, marketed as PowerVision, give
consumer and business customers access to numerous sophisticated applications using EV-DO-enabled devices,
including data messaging, imaging, entertainment and location-based applications. We first introduced EV-DO
7