Forsee Foresees Telcom Industry Growth

LAS VEGAS, Jan. 9 -- "Useful innovation" and the delivery of integrated products and services are key to the future of communications, Sprint Chairman and CEO Gary Forsee said during his keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show 2004 today. Forsee said he envisions bringing together the best of the wired and wireless worlds to bring "anywhere, anytime" communications to customers.

Forsee discussed how telecom products have changed the way consumers and businesses access information, buy and sell products and services and listen to music as he outlined the rapid pace of progress throughout the industry.

"For Sprint, the guiding principle for product and application development is to develop 'useful innovation' for people," said Forsee. "Not innovation just for the sake of innovation. Sprint's goal with useful innovation is to transform customers' potential into performance and performance into power -- the power to connect, the power to share, the power to access the world," he said.

Forsee presented Sprint customers to help demonstrate his point, including a teen who showed how he used his Sprint phone to foil an abduction attempt and help the police apprehend the suspect. A Sprint customer who shoots video for the Weather Channel illustrated how ireports on severe weather conditions are transmitted using a Sprint service, and students and faculty from Case Western Reserve University spoke about how integrated Sprint services help them better access on campus.

"When I speak about an integrated experience," Forsee said, "It means connecting people wherever they are. It means delivering voice and data across multiple platforms. An integrated experience enables people to read e-mail, open attachments, view a spreadsheet or other information -- at home, at the office, from the road, even from the beach or Little League game."

For more information, visit: www.cesweb.org