The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) awarded Sprint a three-year, multimillion dollar Telecommunications Relay Services (TRS) contract to provide assistive communications services. Sprint will be one of three telecommunications companies to provide TRS to California citizens beginning in December 2004.

California Relay Services (CRS) will be accessible throughout California by dialing 711 or one of several toll-free numbers.

The new service allows Californians who are deaf, hard of hearing or deaf-blind or who have a speech disability to communicate with hearing persons on the phone through traditional relay services, a process that involves a relay operator serving as an intermediary for phone calls between a deaf user and a hearing party. The TRS operator speaks words typed by a deaf user on a text telephone (TTY) or via the Internet and relays the hearing person's spoken response by typing back to the deaf user.

Sprint is providing CRS through the Deaf and Disabled Telecommunications Program, a multimillion dollar program administered by the California Public Utilities Commission and funded by surcharges on customer bills.