PHILADELPHIA-Sprint Spectrum L.P. launched service in Philadelphia on April 3, now the 20th market in which the carrier offers service.
The Philadelphia major trading area license actually is held by PhillieCo L.P., a consortium of three Sprint Spectrum L.P. owners-Sprint Corp., Tele-Communications Inc. and Cox Communications Inc.
PhillieCo was created to get around auction rules that didn’t allow cellular operators to bid for personal communications services licenses in cities where they had cellular holdings.
The fourth owner of Sprint Spectrum is Comcast Communications Inc., which is one of Philadelphia’s cellular operators. The other city cellular operator is Bell Atlantic Nynex Mobile. AT&T Wireless Services Inc. holds the second 1900 MHz MTA license for that market, but has not launched commercial 1900 MHz service.
Sprint Spectrum has opened Sprint PCS retail locations in Philadelphia, King of Prussia and Broomall, and is distributing Sprint-branded phones through numerous other retail channels.
