Sprint to discontinue its PCS Mail service
In another apparent effort to streamline its services to focus on revenue, wireless carrier Sprint will stop providing the servers for e-mail service for its PCS phone customers, although it will let customers pick their own providers.
As a notice on its Web site indicates, Sprint will stop providing PCS Mail service on December 31. Giving customers plenty of time to make the transition, it's set up instructions and support for moving e-mail accounts, contacts, and even existing messages to Google's Gmail, AOL Mail, Yahoo Mail, or Windows Live Hotmail.
Sprint will continue to provide its Mobile E-mail application, which already provided access to multiple providers simultaneously, including the four listed above.
The news comes one week after the carrier disappointed investors with news of a $344 million quarterly loss, amid an 11% decline in revenue for the last quarter. Its customer base continues to leak like a sieve, with a net loss of 776,000 customers during the last quarter alone to about 52 million.
On Monday, the company gave indications its services for PCS were not the only older architecture assets it is considering unloading. Its iDEN network, once the cornerstone of Nextel, may soon be on the auction block according to multiple reports in the financial press.