[VoiceStream Wireless and Omnipoint have purchased mobile phone infrastructure from Sprint in the Washington and Baltimore areas, adding to their rapidly growing footprint. ]

By John Borland -- "VoiceStream is moving closer to building the next national wireless network in the United States, after a series of mergers--including joining forces with Omnipoint--that has helped drive its stock price up more than 640 percent this year.

"As the Bellevue, Wash.-based company grows, VoiceStream is getting nearer to taking on Sprint, AT&T and Nextel--the only mobile phone providers that can claim coast-to-coast coverage. All of these companies have their sights set on a mobile phone market that is rapidly growing: By the year 2003, analysts predict that 1 billion cellular phones will be in use worldwide.

"The purchase of Sprint's equipment doesn't come with any customers or even access to a wireless spectrum, the "airwaves" over which companies transmit mobile phone voice signals. But VoiceStream already has a spectrum it can use in the area, although both companies had previously sent their customers through Sprint's channels.

"Omnipoint and VoiceStream have already begun to upgrade the existing facilities," Omnipoint CEO Douglas Smith said in a statement. "It's important for this key travel destination to have the world's most popular and most advanced mobile communications system. Now we know it will remain covered."

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