Sprint today announced that it will make an investment of nearly $150 million in Chicago by the end of 2016.
The SoftBank subsidiary aims to add more than 750 new jobs to neighborhoods throughout Chicago as part of the investment program. In March 2015, Sprint announced plans to add 300 new jobs when launching the Sprint for Chicago initiative.
The focus of the Sprint for Chicago initiative is to improve customer service and simplify the brand experience.
In total, Sprint expects to add more than 1,000 new jobs in Chicago by the end of 2016. The new 750 jobs include new retail positions to serve more customers, wireless experts for Sprint’s Direct 2 You program, and network technicians and engineers.
Marcelo Claure, Sprint CEO, said: “We are in the midst of a historic turnaround at Sprint and as we continue to attract more customers to our network, we need more employees to serve their needs.”
Sprint employs more than 800 employees and has more than 160 stores across Chicagoland. Today’s announcement increases network spend from $45 million to nearly $150 million over the next two years in the city of Chicago and $250 million in Chicagoland.
Chicago will be the first Sprint city upgraded to faster network with the deployment of LTE Advanced technologies.
Sprint will be adding new cell sites in neighborhoods throughout the city and include the areas around Rush University Medical Center, areas surrounding Garfield Park, and along Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) subway routes as part of the city’s project to upgrade the Chicago subway’s wireless network to 4G.
Tracy Nolan, president and general manager of Illinois and Wisconsin, is managing Sprint for Chicago program. Based in Chicago, she directs more than 1,000 employees spanning sales, customer care, operations, network, finance, IT and marketing.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com
