Sprint Nextel Corp. on Friday said that it will sell sections of its mobile phone operations in the Midwest to conform to a ruling by an Illinois court.

The company, with help from financial adviser Citi, is currently in the look out for prospective buyers for its Nextel-branded network, spread across Illinois, Iowa, Michigan and Nebraska, where its affiliate company- iPCS Inc. operates.

The announcement follows a court decision that stated that the Nextel deal (2005) violated Sprint''s exclusivity agreement with iPCS, and directed the company to cease owning or operating the iDEN network in iPCS territory.

However, the sale will not involve any of its Sprint-branded networks since they use a different cellular technology than that of Nextel.

And the sale will find minimal effect on its financial results and customers would not see a change in service.

Sprint expects the sale to be completed before the 2010 deadline.