AirGate PCS, Inc., a Sprint PCS Network Partner, Announces Appointment of General Counsel.

Business Editors and High-Tech Writers

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 3, 2000

AirGate PCS, Inc., (Nasdaq/NM: PCSA), a Sprint PCS (NYSE: PCS) Network Partner, today announced that Barbara L. Blackford has joined the Company as Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary.

Prior to joining AirGate, Ms. Blackford was Associate General Counsel with the Monsanto Company in St. Louis, Missouri, where she led the legal staff supporting mergers and acquisitions and managed the office of the Corporate Secretary. During her three-year tenure, Monsanto completed more than $40 billion in acquisitions, mergers and divestitures. Ms. Blackford led the legal staff on Monsanto's merger with Pharmacia & Upjohn and the acquisition of DEKALB Genetics Corporation. Ms. Blackford previously spent 14 years in private practice and as a partner with two Atlanta -based law firms where she specialized in mergers and acquisitions and public finance.

Ms. Blackford received both an undergraduate degree and a law degree from the University of Alabama.

"We are very pleased to have someone of Barbara's caliber join the AirGate management team," commented Thomas M. Dougherty, president and chief executive officer of AirGate PCS. "Her extensive corporate legal experience and expertise in mergers and acquisitions will be a tremendous asset to AirGate, and we have every confidence that she will make a direct and significant contribution to the Company's future growth."

AirGate PCS, Inc. is the exclusive manager and operator of Sprint PCS products and services throughout most of the state of South Carolina, including Charleston, Columbia and Greenville-Spartanburg, parts of North Carolina, including Asheville, Wilmington and Hickory, and the eastern Georgia cities of Augusta and Savannah with a territory that includes more than 7.1 million licensed POPs covering 62,000 contiguous square miles. AirGate PCS is one of the largest Sprint PCS Network Partners based on the size of the population in its territory. As a Sprint PCS Network Partner, AirGate PCS is building its own PCS network to exclusively provide 100 percent digital, 100 percent PCS products and services under the Sprint PCS brand names in its territory.

Sprint PCS operates the largest 100 percent digital, 100 percent PCS nationwide wireless network in the United States, already serving the majority of the nation's metropolitan areas including more than 4,000 cities and communities across the country. Sprint PCS has licensed PCS coverage of nearly 270 million people in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. For more information, visit the Sprint PCS web site at http://www.sprintpcs.com. Sprint PCS is a wholly-owned tracking group of Sprint Corporation trading on the NYSE under the symbol "PCS."

Sprint is a global communications company at the forefront of integrating long-distance, local and wireless communications services, and a large carrier of Internet traffic. Sprint built and operates the United States' first nationwide all-digital, fiber-optic network and is a leader in advanced data communications services. Sprint has $20 billion in annual revenues and serves more than 20 million business and residential customers.