Largest U.S. Landscaper Tracks Its Spreading Nationwide Roots with Sprint GPS Solutions

ValleyCrest Landscape supplements extensive wireless push-to-talk and wireline communications with GPS to manage projects, enhance productivity.

OVERLAND PARK, Kan., -- Sprint (NYSE:S) and ValleyCrest Landscape Companies announced an agreement for Sprint to add GPS services to ValleyCrest's communications toolkit at select branch locations. The location-based services (LBS) will help ValleyCrest better track employee job location and company assets for these field branches. The tool also helps the landscape and lawn maintenance giant handle payroll and route job assignments.
Sprint is the number one provider of GPS solutions, offering the largest portfolio of GPS-enabled solutions for enterprise, general business and consumers. Sprint has the longest history of providing location-based services in the wireless industry, beginning in 2000.

"Sprint continues to be a long-time communications ally of ours," said Gary King, manager of Telecom, ValleyCrest. "Our crews and corporate staff require dependable business communications. We place an emphasis on instant communication to drive productivity and customer results. Our long-term use of Nextel Direct Connect(R) has proven its value as a push-to-talk service for its sub-second instant connections. Sprint's leadership in GPS solutions is another bonus for companies such as ours that seek to gain the most value and performance out of each dollar we spend. Our strong relationship with Sprint helps us deliver the high quality service and results that our customers have to expect from ValleyCrest."

A Sprint customer for more than 12 years, ValleyCrest designs, builds and maintains landmark projects across the country, including hundreds of hotels, retail centers, master-planned museums, educational institutions and homes. Notable examples include nearly every property on the Las Vegas strip, high-profile institutional landmarks such as the Getty Center in Los Angeles and Boston's 9/11 Memorial, and technologically advanced sports arenas such as the retractable field at the University of Phoenix Stadium.

ValleyCrest coordinates its expansive operations with more than 5,000 wireless units that enable field personnel to instantly communicate using Sprint's Nextel Direct Connect push-to-talk service. The GPS and Nextel Direct Connect services are part of a converged wireless and wireline solution from Sprint that includes MPLS and long distance wireline services. ValleyCrest began transferring its MPLS business to Sprint from AT&T in 2008.

"ValleyCrest is an excellent example of a large, growing enterprise that uses advanced communications to help sustain its entrepreneurial edge by being responsive to its customer needs, maintaining flexibility and enhancing productivity," said John Dupree, vice president - Enterprise & Federal, Sprint. "With the advent of location-based services, new push-to-talk features and other emerging applications, business customers are increasingly using wireless and wireline as a strategic tool to stay a step ahead of the competition, while also managing costs more effectively in response to economic conditions. ValleyCrest is a case study in how this can be achieved."

Sprint serves ValleyCrest through its newly formed Business Markets Group (BMG). Composed of more than 4,000 sales, support, marketing and operations personnel, Sprint's BMG is dedicated solely to enterprise, general business and public sector customers. BMG offers a unique combination of 3G and 4G technologies and applications, including integrated wireless-wireline services. The Sprint BMG unit delivers wireless, wireline and converged solutions for companies, drawing on the nation's most dependable 3G mobile broadband network*, 4G capabilities that are well ahead of Sprint's competition, the fastest national push-to-talk network, and a comprehensive solutions portfolio of devices and applications.

About Sprint Nextel

Sprint Nextel offers a comprehensive range of wireless and wireline communications services bringing the freedom of mobility to consumers, businesses and government users. Sprint Nextel is widely recognized for developing, engineering and deploying innovative technologies, including two wireless networks serving more than 49 million customers at the end of the first quarter 2009; industry-leading mobile data services; instant national and international push-to-talk capabilities; and a global Tier 1 Internet backbone. For more information, visit www.sprint.com.

About ValleyCrest Landscape Companies

With headquarters in Calabasas, Calif., ValleyCrest Landscape Companies is the nation's largest integrated landscape services company with annual revenue exceeding $1 billion. It employs more than 10,000 people, operates more than 100 locations nationwide and is included on Forbes' list of America's largest private companies.

* "Dependable" based on independent, third-party drive tests for 3G data connection success, session reliability and signal strength for the top 50 most populous markets from January 2008 to February 2009.