Nov. 3, 2009 (Business Wire) -- Sprint (NYSE: S) announced today that it received top honors in the Nemertes 2009 Pilothouse awards for MPLS Services. Sprint ranked highest overall and won top honors in each evaluation category -- value, customer service, and technology. Sprint also beat chief rivals, AT&T and Verizon in IP network reliability.

In the Nemertes report, Sprint’s performance this year is characterized as “exceptional and a new high-water mark…for all other MPLS services providers…One reason Sprint rates highly on technology is the breadth of connection options for xDSL to 10 Gigabit/s and even wireless via [its] Data Link [for Wireless WAN service].”

The report added that Sprint “surpasses almost all other providers with seven classes of service (COS) supporting all MPLS service offerings…The bottom line is it’s very clear that Sprint has…kept its eye on the customer; knocking the socks off the competition.”

“Deploying and managing a MPLS network is a big undertaking,” says Katherine Trost, research analyst, Nemertes Research. “The underlying technology is complex and orchestration of delivering high-quality service takes an organization with excellent coordination of customer service, and reliability. Our benchmark participants have singled out Sprint, and its rise to the top is impressive, as it dominates in all rating categories.”

For the past two years, Nemertes Research has asked IT decision-makers to rate their MPLS-service providers. This year’s project includes 1,393 total participants. IT practitioners rated their providers on a 1- to 5-scale in the following areas: Value, customer service, technology, and network reliability. What makes this project so different from any other research available? The results are based 100% on the experiences of network decision-makers. Nemertes’ staff determines the methodology, conducts the research and analyzes the findings. But they have no influence over how any given vendor performs; that rests with their customers. In addition, no vendors sponsor this research.

“We’re honored to receive this award from Nemertes,” said Paget Alves, president of Business Markets Group, Sprint. “It validates what our business customers have been telling us – our MPLS capabilities are world class, high-value, consistently reliable, and backed by the best customer service.” He added, “MPLS is the core of our convergence strategy, enabling voice, video and data via a single IP connection so businesses can reduce costs, improve employee productivity and streamline their network.