Interestingly, it looks like this deal is very "forward-thinking", in that Sprint doesn't plan to offer LTE immediately. Primarily, this deal allows LightSquared to begin building their LTE network on top of Sprint's infrastructure, and eventually begin offering LTE to customers in the future. This means that Sprint will continue to offer WiMAX to customers and continue to support it for the foreseeable future. For the interim, this deal basically allows LightSquared to grow their company while renting spectrum from Sprint. This will ultimately boost Sprint's operating capital, and eventually allow them to leave the eventual dead-end of WiMAX for future LightSquared powered LTE service.
The bad news for Sprint right now was their second quarter financials. Sprint actually added an additional 1.1 million subscribers (prepaid and wholesale) to their base. Unfortunately, they lost 101,000 in their postpaid contract customer sector, which is their primary "bread and butter" for revenue. Because of this, they were not able to post a profit this quarter, and actually posted a loss of $847 million on revenues of $8.3 Million.
In the long run, this won't be terrible news, as Sprint has been rapidly gaining an improved image in the community. They have the best deals on smartphones & data plans, they offer the most incentives for new and existing customers, and they were recently rated a tie for number one with Verizon for excellent customer service. As the saying goes, "sometimes it's darkest, just before the dawn." Perhaps, we are simply seeing the dawn of a new decade of success for the Now Network.
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