CHICAGO – Three-sixty Communications Co. has completed its spinoff from Sprint Corp. to become a public business with a market capitalization of $3 billion.
“Becoming a new publicly traded company will allow us to become more agile and creative in leveraging our incumbent position,” said Dennis Foster, Three-sixty president and chief executive.
Three-sixty, formerly Sprint Cellular, has about 1.5 million subscribers. The company intends to upgrade its analog network to narrow-band Advanced Mobile Phone Service, then migrate to digital Code Division Multiple Access. The company said it plans to construct more than 200 cell sites this year and add voice channels and microwave links to increase network capacity and efficiency.
Three-sixty also intends to expand its clustered operations to enjoy economy of scale. It has made a few recent efforts toward that goal, including a swap of controlling interest with U.S Cellular; Three-sixty gave up the lower southeast corner of Kansas to assume ownership of the upper northwest corner of Ohio. Three-sixty also has increased its ownership in four Florida panhandle markets and acquired the North Carolina 14 rural service area from Southeastern Cellular.
The company recently began a multi-million dollar advertising campaign to build local brand awareness of its new name and green logo.
“We think of a company name and mark as a container to pour brand equity into. Our new name, mark and color will provide us great opportunities to become recognizable fast,” Foster said.
