Sprint rebuilds federal, public sector market presence, taps Felix to lead new division

Sprint is rededicating itself to the public sector and federal government IT markets, kicking off new investments across its wireline, wireless and cloud service lines.

As part of its reinvigorated public-sector focus, Sprint said it is going to increase market efforts with what it calls a converged solution portfolio that includes wireless, wireline, security and internet of things (IoT) offerings carried over the Sprint network.

In tandem with the revamped public-sector focus, Sprint tapped Chris Felix to be its VP of government solutions and lead the effort. Felix has spent 27 years in the telecom industry, including serving the federal government and leading federal government sales and operations for a competitor.

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Prior to coming to Sprint, Felix served as the VP of federal government sales for Verizon Wireless. During his three-year tenure leading Verizon Wireless’ federal efforts, Felix established contracts with several federal civilian and defense agencies, including the FBI, Secret Service, GSA, the Department of Commerce and the Department of Defense.

"My complete focus will be on building a world-class organization that will serve the federal and public-sector customer by providing the most creative and advanced, mission critical, converged telecom solutions possible,” Felix said in a release.

Sprint’s public-sector wireless, wireline and IoT solutions will focus on five key areas:

Mobility: Since many federal agencies have employees housed throughout the country, Sprint will provide its wireless services to help drive flexibility and agility through their smartphones and other devices to increase productivity and collaboration.

Smart buildings: Sprint's IoT solutions, including current sensor technology, will be applied to help government agencies reduce heating and air conditioning costs in federal buildings, as well as to gain environmental benefits due to reduced power consumption. Agencies can have Sprint implement sensors in buildings to measure electricity, motion, pressure and temperature. Additionally, by applying artificial intelligence, Sprint can adapt to the data about these measurements to reduce the need for human monitoring.

Fleet and asset tracking: Using sensor technology, Sprint can help the federal government maintain one of the largest fleets of nonmilitary vehicles. Sensors in vehicles can detect the vehicle’s location, speed, direction of travel, fuel usage, idling times, and how the vehicle is being driven to increase fuel savings and safety.

Mobile forms: Enabling the federal government to migrate to electronic forms completed via mobile devices will increase efficiency, productivity and enhance the citizen experience. Since forms can be integrated with any software or database, Sprint can expedite transmission and storage of forms.

Cloud: Public sector agencies will also be able to turn to Sprint to help them in transitioning more of their network to the cloud on secure platforms. By migrating to cloud-based solutions, federal government agencies can forgo the capital and upgrade cycles required with on-premises equipment.

While Sprint’s public sector and federal market effort is new, the service provider is hardly a novice in the public sector, having provided government and public-sector solutions since the GSA issued its FTS contract in 1988. The service provider was also a contractor on GSA Networx Enterprise, which is the follow-on contract to the FTS contracts.

By increasing its focus on the public sector, Sprint could better position itself to potentially play a broader role in upcoming government agency transitions to the GSA’s Enterprise Infrastructure Services contract.