Sprint highlighted network enhancements and a hefty profit during its fiscal Q2, despite a decline in overall subscriber numbers.

The operator overturned a net loss of $48 million in the three months to end-September 2017 with a profit of $196 million in the recent quarter, the bulk of which ($178 million) was due to implementation of new accounting standards.

Consolidated revenue of $8.4 billion was up from $7.9 billion in fiscal Q2 2017. Wireless service revenue of $5.5 billion was down slightly from $5.6 billion, due to a $173 million impact from the new accounting standards. But without that drag, Sprint said wireless service revenue would have inched up to $5.7 billion, marking the first increase in five years.

The growth came despite Sprint’s loss of 20,000 wireless subscribers in the quarter, as post paid net additions of 109,000 failed to offset the loss of 14,000 in prepaid users during the quarter and the previous removal of 115,000 wholesale subscribers at the start of Sprint’s fiscal Q1.

In fiscal Q2 2017, post paid net additions stood at 168,000.

Sprint ended the recent quarter with 54.5 million total connections, down from 54.6 million.

Network improvements
The operator talked up an accelerated roll out of small cells, revealing it deployed more small cells in the past six months than the previous two years combined. The operator had a total of 21,000 small cells active on its network at end September, up from 2,000 at the same point in 2017.

It also highlighted the continued rollout of its 2.5GHz spectrum, noting the band is now deployed on 70 per cent of its macro sites, compared with 50 per cent at end fiscal Q2 2017

CTO John Saw provided an update on Sprint’s transition to VoLTE, stating it had conducted soft-launches in 35 cities. It plans to add more cities in the coming weeks as it moves toward commercial launches in 2019.