now happening at c spire

NewslinkBETA Service Delivers Top Stories and Content in several key areas Free of Charge to Customers for Real-Time Consumption on Computers, Tablets or Smartphones

Ridgeland, Miss. (May 17, 2012) – C Spire Wireless became the first U.S. wireless provider to offer consumer and business customers free personalized news and information with the launch this week of its new NewslinkBETA service.

The new service is the first phase of the company’s plans to develop a fully integrated and personalized news delivery service that finds the news and information that matters most to individual customers and delivers it daily via the Internet and the mobile web now and an app in the future, according to Jim Richmond, director of Corporate Communications for C Spire Wireless.

Richmond said a month-long trial of the new service with 1,000 company employees and 22,000 customers who participate in C Spire’s Circle and Inner Circle program was very successful and generated a positive reaction to the planned introduction. The content is arranged by categories covering the areas of news, sports, business, politics, outdoors and music and culture.

“Newslink is being designed and developed with personalization in mind,” Richmond said, adding that the company’s analytics tools and search engines will eventually comb through millions of news and information sources daily to recommend the most timely, relevant and meaningful content for each individual customer.

Richmond said many of the company’s customers in Mississippi will begin receiving a daily e-mail message featuring the premium news and information content, which can be accessed via a desktop or laptop computer, tablet or smartphone.

The e-mail will feature links to various news sources around the state and nation – enabling each Newslink subscriber to link directly to the source of information and driving increased web and mobile web traffic to and engagement with news outlets around Mississippi.

With the latest Nielsen and Pew Internet research surveys showing more than half of all U.S. mobile subscribers now own smartphones and that users access either these devices or tablets on-the-go to get much of their local news and information, the need for development of this type of new service is self-evident, Richmond said.

“We’ve seen that when consumers experience the benefits of the very best in personalized news and information, they become fully engaged and are active participants in helping us get to the next level in personalizing their experience,” Richmond said, noting that nearly 60 percent of C Spire’s customer base use smartphones.

Newslink is the latest addition to C Spire’s network of personalized services. Consumers already are embracing services like SCOUT, the company’s personalized app finder, its PERCS rewards program and Circle, C Spire’s community forum that engages consumers in a two-way conversation about products, services and their wireless experience.

“Personalized news and information is just the next phase of our efforts to develop services that adapt to each individual and put them at the center of everything,” Richmond said, adding that customers have become the early adopters of personalized wireless services available only from C Spire Wireless.

For more information or to subscribe to C Spire’s NewslinkBETA service, go to www.cspire.com/newslink.

About C Spire Wireless

C Spire Wireless is a diversified wireless communications company passionately committed to helping customers by personalizing wireless services designed just for them. The company is the first wireless provider in the U.S. to personalize customers’ experience by offering apps that fit who they are, services that anticipate their needs, and rewards for using their phone in new ways – all with seamless ease and at amazingly fast speeds. This news release and other announcements are available at www.cspire.com/news. For more information about C Spire Wireless and its products and services, visit www.cspire.com or follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/cspire or Twitter at www.twitter.com/cspire.