Sprint announced its results for the second quarter of 2011, with its recently-announced multibillion dollar deal with LightSquared failing to distract from the uninspiring numbers. According to Reuters, investors were hoping that Sprint would provide further detail on its own 4G plans, including an anticipated move to support LTE technology as an alternative to its current WiMAX deployment with Clearwire. However, in a conference call, the company said it would meet with the investment community on 7 October to fully detail its “technology and spectrum roadmap.” According to Joseph Euteneuer (pictured), Sprint’s recently installed CFO, the partnership with LightSquared has “no current impact on Clearwire,” where Sprint has a wholesale deal in place until 2012, which can be extended indefinitely at the operator’s request. It was also noted that its work with LightSquared will be “prefunded,” meaning it is not taking on additional risk through the strategic alliance. Dan Hesse, CEO of Sprint, addressed the issue of possible interference between the LightSquared network and GPS receivers by stating that “we will not turn on the network until this issue is resolved.”

During the quarter to 30 June 2011, Sprint reported a net loss of US$847 million, compared with a prior year loss of US$760 million, on revenue of US$8.31 billion, up 4 percent from US$8.03 billion. For the Wireless unit, it reported an operating loss of US$27 million, compared with a prior-year profit of US$140 million, on total revenue of US$7.45 billion, up 6 percent year-on-year. During the period, it added nearly 1.1 million total net wireless subscribers, although its contract customer base decreased by 101,000, which the company positively described as a “net improvement of 127,000, or 56 percent, compared to the second quarter of 2010.” At the end of the second quarter, the operator had 52 million mobile customers, of which 32.9 million were contract (27.7 using its CDMA network, 5 million for its iDEN network, and 268,000 dual-mode subscribers). Sprint also achieved its best ever contract churn figure of 1.75 percent, and lowest prepaid churn in “almost six years” at 4.14 percent.