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Women In Business
There is a commitment Sprint makes to customers...to be there with you, at every step along the way, with the right technology, unsurpassed service and support, and innovative solutions.
This commitment first took shape in 1899 by an entrepreneur with great vision named C.L. Brown who founded a small, local telephone company in Abilene, Kansas, called the Brown Telephone Company. The company, which employed three people at its start, grew to be the second-largest telephone company in Kansas after consolidating with three other area independent telephone companies in 1911. The new consolidated company, called United Telephone Company, rapidly grew to local markets in Kansas and beyond, and quickly became a viable alternative to Bell.
Great vision
Following the Depression years, the company reorganized as United Utilities, growing to become the second-largest, non-Bell telephone company in America by the 1950s. Later, in 1964, when Paul H. Henson became president of United Utilities, Inc., he almost immediately reorganized the company in accordance with C.L. Brown's belief that centralizing some of the company's functions would result in greater efficiency, cost reductions and growth.
In 1972 the company changed its name to United Telecommunications, and by 1976 this diversified corporation served more than 3.5 million telephone lines coast-to-coast and generated revenues exceeding $1 billion. In the mid-1980s, the company announced its bold plan to enter the deregulated long distance market. Domestic long-distance service officially launched in 1986 under the Sprint brand name, with the nation's first 100% digital, fiber-optic network as the centerpiece of the plan.
First in fiber optics
Over the next few years United solidified its industry leadership and success through a series of high-profile technological advances, including the nation's first coast-to-coast fiber-optic transmission and the first transatlantic fiber-optic phone call. Sprint International then emerged in...