Sprint reports 2nd Qtr results

[503ducati]

http://www.businesswire.com/news/hom...esults-Updates






OVERLAND PARK, Kan.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) today reported a net loss of $1.4 billion and a diluted net loss of $.46 per share for the second quarter of 2012 as compared to a net loss of $847 million and a diluted net loss of $.28 per share in the second quarter of 2011. Sprint’s second quarter 2012 results include accelerated depreciation of $782 million, or negative $.26 per share (pre-tax), primarily related to Network Vision, including the expected shutdown of the Nextel platform; $184 million, or negative $.06 per share (pre-tax), for the recognition of lease exit costs for the remaining lease obligations associated with certain Nextel sites shut down; and an impairment of $204 million, or negative $.07 per share (pre-tax), related to Sprint’s investment in Clearwire.

“Based on this performance, we are raising the 2012 Adjusted OIBDA* forecast to between $4.5 billion and $4.6 billion.”
The company reported wireless service revenues of $7.3 billion during the quarter, an increase of more than 8 percent year-over-year, driven primarily by Sprint platform postpaid ARPU growth of $4.31 – the largest quarterly year-over-year increase on record for the U.S. wireless industry.

Sprint platform postpaid net additions of 442,000 improved by 68 percent sequentially driven by best ever quarterly churn performance of 1.69 percent, a Nextel postpaid recapture rate of 60 percent and the continued strength of iPhone® sales. Sprint recorded nearly 1.5 million iPhone sales in the second quarter with 40 percent going to new postpaid customers.

“The Sprint platform achieved best ever postpaid ARPU and customer churn that, combined with disciplined customer acquisition and cost management, contributed to our Adjusted OIBDA* of $1.45 billion,” said Dan Hesse, Sprint CEO. “Based on this performance, we are raising the 2012 Adjusted OIBDA* forecast to between $4.5 billion and $4.6 billion.”

NETWORK VISION HIGHLIGHTS

Sprint’s Network Vision initiative remains on track. The company has taken 9,600 Nextel sites off air to date – earlier than previous guidance. To date, the company has completed leasing agreements for more than 12,700 Network Vision sites and zoning requirements are completed for nearly 13,900 sites. In addition, nearly 6,300 sites are either ready for construction or already underway and more than 2,000 sites are on air and meeting speed and coverage enhancement targets. Sprint expects to bring 12,000 sites on air by the end of 2012 and to complete the majority of its Network Vision roll-out by the end of 2013.

As part of Network Vision, Sprint launched 4G LTE in five major markets and 15 cities on July 15 including Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Atlanta and Kansas City. Sprint launched its first four 4G LTE smartphones during the second quarter – Galaxy Nexus™, LG Viper™ 4G LTE, HTC EVO 4G LTE™ and Samsung Galaxy S® III. Sprint also significantly expanded the coverage area of its Sprint Direct Connect push-to-talk service with the addition of roaming and Sprint 1xRTT coverage areas.

LIQUIDITY

During the second quarter, Sprint entered into a new $1 billion secured credit facility contingent on equipment-related purchases from Ericsson for Network Vision with a cost of funding of approximately 6 percent based on expected drawdowns. This followed debt offerings of $2 billion raised in the first quarter of 2012 and $4 billion raised in the fourth quarter of 2011 to help fund the Network Vision deployment, debt maturities and working capital requirements. The company also retired $1 billion of 2013 debt maturities during the quarter. Sprint’s next scheduled debt maturities include $300 million due in May 2013 and $473 million due in October 2013. As of June 30, 2012, the company’s liquidity was approximately $8 billion consisting of $6.8 billion in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments and $1.2 billion of undrawn borrowing capacity available under its revolving bank credit facility. Additionally, the company had $1 billion of undrawn availability under the equipment financing credit facility. Sprint generated $1.2 billion of net cash provided by operating activities and $209 million of Free Cash Flow* in the quarter.


CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AND BRAND HIGHLIGHTS

Sprint’s leading customer experience continued to garner third-party accolades. In particular, the American Customer Satisfaction Index ranked Sprint number one among all national carriers in customer satisfaction and most improved, across all 47 industries, over the last four years. Sprint is the only U.S. company to go from last place to first place in its industry during this time. Sprint was the only telecom provider ranked in the top 50 by the Environmental Protection Agency Green Power Partners Fortune 500 list and for the third consecutive year Sprint won the International Electronics Recycling Conference and Expo Sustainability Leadership Award.

In addition to the new 4G LTE device launches, Sprint continued to strengthen its portfolio of products and services during the second quarter. Sprint’s Virgin Mobile USA brand began offering the iPhone to prepaid customers. Virgin Mobile also launched HTC EVO™ V 4G and Boost Mobile launched HTC EVO Design 4G™ bringing the combination of 4G WiMax and the award-winning EVO family of devices to prepaid customers. Sprint also announced Sprint Wholesale Cloud Services, a unique combination of platform services, a full suite of enablement applications and one-on-one support for wireless resellers. Additionally, earlier this month Sprint announced an exclusive relationship with CSC to deliver cloud computing, cloud-based email, managed hosting and co-location services in the U.S. to commercial customers. The company also introduced Sprint Guardian, a collection of mobile safety and device security bundles that provide families relevant tools to help stay safe and secure.


Wireless Customers

The company served more than 56 million customers at the end of the second quarter of 2012. This includes nearly 32.6 million postpaid subscribers (29.4 million on the Sprint platform and 3.1 million on the Nextel platform), 15.4 million prepaid subscribers (14.1 million on the Sprint platform and 1.3 million on the Nextel platform) and approximately 8.4 million wholesale and affiliate subscribers, all of whom utilize the Sprint platform.

The Sprint platform added 442,000 net postpaid customers during the quarter. The Nextel platform lost 688,000 net postpaid customers in the quarter. Sprint platform postpaid net additions and Nextel platform postpaid net subscriber losses include 431,000 net subscribers from the Nextel platform acquired on the Sprint platform.

The company added 141,000 net prepaid subscribers during the quarter, which includes net additions of 451,000 prepaid Sprint platform customers, offset by net losses of 310,000 prepaid Nextel platform customers. Sprint platform prepaid net additions and Nextel platform prepaid net losses include 143,000 net subscribers from the Nextel platform acquired on the Sprint platform.

For the quarter, the company reported net additions of 388,000 wholesale and affiliate subscribers (all of whom are on the Sprint platform) as a result of growth in MVNOs reselling prepaid services.

The credit quality of Sprint’s end-of-period postpaid customers was 82 percent prime compared to approximately 83 percent for the year-ago period and flat as compared to the first quarter of 2012.

Sprint Platform Churn and Nextel Recapture

For the quarter, the company reported Sprint platform postpaid churn of 1.69 percent, compared to 1.72 percent for the year-ago period and 2.00 percent for the first quarter of 2012. Sprint platform quarterly postpaid churn decreased year-over-year primarily due to a reduction in voluntary churn. The sequential decrease in Sprint platform postpaid churn was driven primarily by seasonality as well as a reduction in both voluntary and involuntary deactivation rates. Involuntary deactivations occur when Sprint disconnects a customer due to lack of payment or violations of terms and conditions. Higher levels of involuntary deactivations were realized during the first quarter of 2012 largely due to pricing actions taken in the second and third quarters of 2011, primarily through indirect channels. Sprint tightened its credit standards during the third and fourth quarters of 2011 to stem further impacts of these types of promotional activities by our indirect dealers.

60 percent of total subscribers who left the postpaid Nextel platform during the period were recaptured on the postpaid Sprint platform as compared to 27 percent in the second quarter of 2011 and 46 percent in the first quarter of 2012.

Approximately 9 percent of Sprint platform postpaid customers upgraded their handsets during the second quarters of 2012 and 2011 and 8 percent in the first quarter of 2012. The sequential increase was primarily driven by new device launches and subscribers who left the Nextel platform and were acquired on the Sprint platform. The year-over-year period was relatively flat due to changes in our upgrade eligibility policies offset by an increase in subscribers leaving the Nextel platform and being acquired on the Sprint platform.

Sprint platform prepaid churn for the second quarter was 3.16 percent, compared to 3.25 percent for the year-ago period and 2.92 percent for the first quarter of 2012. The quarterly year-over-year improvement in Sprint platform prepaid churn was primarily a result of improvements in the Virgin Mobile and Boost brands, partially offset by higher churn for Assurance Wireless®. The sequential increase in churn was also primarily related to higher Assurance Wireless churn.

[503ducati]

- There is now only 4.4 million iDEN (postpaid + prepaid) subscribers left.


+442,000 Postpaid CDMA

-688,000 Postpaid iDEN


+451,000 Prepaid CDMA

-310,000 Prepaid iDEN


+388,000 wholesale and affiliate subscribers

[Evan702]

At the rate that iDEN subs are defecting, a June 30, 2013 total shutdown seems about right.

[billm261]

At the rate that iDEN subs are defecting, a June 30, 2013 total shutdown seems about right.

But it's ok.

The percentage of those who switch to CDMA was 60% and the number gets higher every quarter. I suspect that will continue as those that are hanging onto IDEN do so because they need PTT.

[503ducati]

But it's ok.

The percentage of those who switch to CDMA was 60% and the number gets higher every quarter. I suspect that will continue as those that are hanging onto IDEN do so because they need PTT.

In the past some have been curious how many postpaid iDEN subscribers are migrating over to CDMA. I stumbled upon an article that seems to shed some light on this.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/7025...rim?source=msn




http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/da...040/dex991.htm

[lennyj17]

Stock is roaring - approaching 4$ a share...Has Wall Street finally learned to negate Nextel losses?

- Best Ever Post Paid Churn
- 40% of iPhones sold to "NEW SUBS"
- Industry Low Pre-Paid Churn
- 1.5 million iPhone sold
- Highest Post-Paid ARPU 63.38 (Right in Line with ATT King of the iphones and well above Verizon)

[mdasen]

So, there are a few interesting things here.

1. In actuality, Sprint added fewer than 30,000 CDMA post-pay subscribers. Sprint lost 688,000 iDEN subs, but 60% of those weren't actually lost - they were merely customers that upgraded their device to a CDMA device. So, 412,800 iDEN subscribers upgraded their iDEN phone to CDMA. In reality, Sprint only added 29,200 CDMA post-pay subscribers.

2. Sprint's post-pay churn is still high (both AT&T and Verizon are below 1%), but it's nice to see it getting better.

3. Sprint is still losing money. It's been a long time since the company has been doing well financially.

4. Sprint has jumped 20% today despite the largest loss in at least 5 quarters (and 64% higher than last year). This is probably due to Sprint's revised OIBDA forecast, not some sort of "Wall Street has learned to ignore Nextel losses" scenario. Frankly, if Wall Street should be ignoring the iDEN losses, they should be ignoring the CDMA gains - since 93% of CDMA adds were people switching from iDEN.

All in all, it seems like more of the same. Sprint's customer base is pretty much flat (overall increasing by 286k, but post-pay decreasing by 246k). Sprint's picking up the low-end (pre-pay, affiliate) while AT&T and Verizon take the top. Financials are still poor. It's nice to see LTE coming and iDEN going, but I don't think it's going to change Sprint's position (although not running iDEN might be financially good in a year or two). iDEN is down to 4.4M customers - well under the customer base of carriers that only operate in a few areas like MetroPCS (at 9.3M), Leap/Cricket (at 7M), and US Cellular (at 5.9M). Hopefully getting rid of iDEN and getting LTE out will change Sprint's fortunes in the coming years.

[lennyj17]

Leave up to you mdasen to slant things to the negative.

2. Sprint's post-pay churn is still high (both AT&T and Verizon are below 1%), but it's nice to see it getting better.

1.69 on CDMA is best ever for Sprint, and that's pretty low when the market was looking for Churn to be well over 2%

3. Sprint is still losing money. It's been a long time since the company has been doing well financially.

What do you expect with a 2nd Nationwide Network with only 4M subs....Sprint suppose to be rolling in cash...Sprint's not going make a profit until iDen is dead, in the ground, and completely off the books. The Network is a complete liability to Sprint right now.


4.

Sprint has jumped 20% today despite the largest loss in at least 5 quarters (and 64% higher than last year). This is probably due to Sprint's revised OIBDA forecast, not some sort of "Wall Street has learned to ignore Nextel losses" scenario. Frankly, if Wall Street should be ignoring the iDEN losses, they should be ignoring the CDMA gains - since 93% of CDMA adds were people switching from iDEN.

Funny how 60% turned into 93% according to you....Do you know what the hell you're talking about? Sprint popped because its overall report beat expectation from the Street, and when you take iDen out of that factor, Sprint did pretty nicely overall.

So Yes the Street has learned to discount iDen numbers, and its the smart thing to do.

All in all, it seems like more of the same. Sprint's customer base is pretty much flat (overall increasing by 286k, but post-pay decreasing by 246k). Sprint's picking up the low-end (pre-pay, affiliate) while AT&T and Verizon take the top. Financials are still poor. It's nice to see LTE coming and iDEN going, but I don't think it's going to change Sprint's position (although not running iDEN might be financially good in a year or two). iDEN is down to 4.4M customers - well under the customer base of carriers that only operate in a few areas like MetroPCS (at 9.3M), Leap/Cricket (at 7M), and US Cellular (at 5.9M). Hopefully getting rid of iDEN and getting LTE out will change Sprint's fortunes in the coming years.

Sprint haters are just going to hate no matter what Sprint does.......more the same indeed...see you next earnings call mdasen

[AnthroMatt]

4. Funny how 60% turned into 93% according to you....Do you know what the hell you're talking about?

Yes, mdasen does know what he is talking about. 60% of iDEN "losses" went to CDMA...but of the gained CDMA customers, over 90% came from iDEN.

[503ducati]

Cramer's Mad Dash: Sprint's Turnaround

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000105358




WSJ: Sprint Shows Signs of Continuing Turnaround

Sprint Nextel Corp. (S) maintained sales levels for the popular Apple Inc. (AAPL) iPhone in the second quarter, in contrast to its rivals, giving support that the company's turnaround is continuing and raising optimism for when a new version of the smartphone arrives, expected later this year.

Overall, the Overland Park, Kan., wireless carrier second-quarter loss widened amid customer losses and costs from the shuttering of its older Nextel network, but its crucial network overhaul is on track, something that will be important because the new iPhone will likely utilize next-generation network technology.

Sprint began selling the iPhone in October by cutting a large multiyear purchase agreement that was viewed as extreme by some, but the company provided assurances Thursday that it would ultimately benefit from the deal.

"We're ahead of pace for what it would take to retire that $15.5 billion four-year commitment," Chief Executive Dan Hesse said in an interview. "Right now, the iPhone decision is looking like a very good one."

Shares jumped 16% to $3.90 as Wall Street was caught off guard by the better-than-expected performance. The frequently volatile stock is down 25% over past 12 months but up 66% for 2012.

After spending years juggling multiple wireless technologies, Sprint is streamlining and upgrading its network in order to draw new customers and keep pace with larger rivals that have a head start to rolling out faster service.

Sprint's next-generation LTE, or Long Term Evolution, network is now running in 15 cities and should cover 100 million potential customers by year-end, but it is still well behind AT&T Inc. (T) and Verizon Wireless in the technology rollout. The network upgrade is expected to be largely completed by mid-2013.

The next iteration of the iPhone--expected in the fall--is widely expected to run on the LTE network, but Mr. Hesse downplayed any concern that Sprint's network will be lacking when compared to rivals. In an interview, he said the phone would still perform well and some of the company's best selling devices were LTE-compatible before the network rollout.

Regardless, Sprint has differentiated itself by being the only major carrier to still offer unlimited data packages with no limits to customers on its network, and Mr. Hesse said there are no plans to change that strategy. AT&T and Verizon Wireless recently unveiled wireless data plans that capitalize on data consuming phones and device.

In the quarter, iPhone unit sales at Verizon Wireless and AT&T dropped 16% and 14%, respectively, from last quarter, while Sprint held unchanged at 1.5 million. Notably, Sprint said 40% of iPhone sales were new customers, compared to 25% at Verizon and 22% at AT&T.

While Sprint still doesn't expect to make a profit on the iPhone deal until 2015, Mr. Hesse said the device will help Sprint's business more than other high-end smartphones, because of lower product returns and overall support costs. He expects iPhone users will have a lower tendency to cancel their service and other subscribers are less likely to jump to another carrier just to get an iPhone.

Sprint also opened a new sales channel last month when it began offering a pay-as-you-go iPhone through its Virgin Mobile USA business, allowing users to pay a higher price for the phone in exchange for cheaper service and without a two-year contract.

"We have sold quite a few devices, but it is just too early to make forecasts," Mr. Hesse said of the strategy. Sprint is working with Apple to begin advertising the pre-paid iPhone. Overall, Sprint's second-quarter results were mixed because of the network transition, but the company impressed Wall Street with its ability to draw revenue from current subscribers and by boosting full-year projections.

In the quarter, Sprint's loss widened to $1.37 billion, or 46 cents a share, from $847 million, or 28 cents, a year earlier. The most-recent quarter included charges of 39 cents a share from the Nextel shutdown and impairment of an investment in network partner Clearwire Corp. (CLWR). Revenue rose 6.4% to $8.84 billion.
Analysts had projected a loss of 40 cents a share on revenue of $8.73 billion, according to Thomson Reuters. Wireless service revenue rose to 17.8%, beating expectations, up from 16.3% a year ago.

Sprint raised its 2012 forecast for adjusted operating earnings before depreciation and amortization to a range of $4.5 billion and $4.6 billion, above a previous view of $3.7 billion to $3.9 billion.

Overall the company lost 246,000 two-year contracts in the quarter, largely from losses of 688,000 users at the legacy Nextel unit.

However, Sprint is squeezing more out of the customers it has with average revenue per postpaid user--an important metric--rising to $60.88 from $56.67 a year ago, the biggest increase in the company's history.
In the quarter, Sprint captured 60% of customers that are leaving its Nextel push-to-talk platform, up from 27% a year ago and 46% last quarter. Sprint said it was unlikely to sustain the latest rate, expecting it to stay above 40% for the rest of the year.

The rate at which customers leave its networks, a measurement known as churn, dropped to 1.79% from 2% in the prior quarter. It was 1.75% a year ago.

Write to Thomas Gryta at thomas.gryta@dowjones.com.

Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires
Copyright © 2012 Dow Jones Newswires


Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/technolog...#ixzz21lHhdCjd

[Evan702]

Leave up to you mdasen to slant things to the negative.

lol did you expect anything less from our resident dark cloud?

[503ducati]

Sprint iPhone sales seem to be doing well. With the new LTE version coming in Q4 there should be a spike across Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint.


Sprint iPhone launched Oct. 14th 2011

Q2 2012 - 1.5 million sold

Q1 2012 - 1.5 million sold

Q4 2011 - 1.8 million sold



Analysts bullish on Sprint Nextel’s Q2; iPhone a strong impact

Sprint Nextel’s second quarter results show that the nation’s No. 3 carrier could be laying the foundation for a payoff from its controversial and expensive plans to carry Apple’s iconic iPhone device.

Analysts noted that the carrier posted a number of robust operating metrics during the quarter, many of which the investment community tied to Sprint Nextel’s launch of the iPhone late last year. Those metrics included growing average revenue per user, falling postpaid churn and the carrier’s apparent ability to steal postpaid customers from its rivals.

That enthusiasm resulted in a surge in Sprint Nextel’s stock price (S), which was up more than 14% in early Thursday trading.
Analysts noted that Sprint Nextel sold approximately 1.5 million iPhone devices during the quarter, which was above forecasts. While those sales pale in comparison to the 3.7 million sold by AT&T Mobility and 2.7 million sold by Verizon Wireless during the quarter, the carrier posted a gain in market share for the device during the quarter and sold a greater percentage of the devices to new customers compared with rivals.

http://www.rcrwireless.com/article/2...strong-impact/


“People will question why they got the iPhone. Now they have the answer.”


“It was a solid quarter,” said Kevin Smithen, an analyst at Macquarie Securities USA Inc. in New York. The results show that Sprint was smart to get the iPhone, he said, despite a costly purchase agreement it made with Apple Inc. (AAPL) “People will question why they got the iPhone. Now they have the answer.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...her-bills.html

[lennyj17]

Yes, mdasen does know what he is talking about. 60% of iDEN "losses" went to CDMA...but of the gained CDMA customers, over 90% came from iDEN.

Thank you.....

lol did you expect anything less from our resident dark cloud?

Yea, that's why I discounted "Wisdom" to nothing more than "Sprint Hater" rhetoric ever since his last 5 predictions of "Sprint death is eminent" failed miserably to ever happen.


Sprint is something special...after all the adversity this Company has faced and is still facing, they keep on chugging right along, refusing to go-out....Like someone full of gun shot wounds battle back against all odds.

Network Vision wipes out the last remains of the Gary Forsee failure era of Sprint, and its the biggest hurdle of them all.

There's going to be a great book written about Hesse if they can pull off Network Vision fully as intended. The attempted murder of Sprint by an inept CEO in Gary Forsee...Hesse is nursing this company back to health, and we're watching every minute of it.

[YOUNG HOV 718]

Intresting article from bgr on why sprint is turning around..

http://www.bgr.com/2012/07/27/sprint...ings-analysis/

Sent from my PC36100 using HowardForums

[503ducati]

Comparison of LTE PoPs covered by year's end:

Year end 2012

Verizon 260 million
AT&T 150 million
Sprint 123 million
T-Mobile 0

http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/...bps/2012-07-16

Intresting article from bgr on why sprint is turning around..

http://www.bgr.com/2012/07/27/sprint...ings-analysis/

Sent from my PC36100 using HowardForums

Sprint sizzles – is AT&T and Verizon’s greed the reason?

By: Tero Kuittinen | Jul 27th, 2012 at 12:05PM

A fallen angel took flight as Sprint (S) soared by 20% on Thursday after an interesting June quarter. The overall net subscriber loss number for postpaid subs was not that great at 240,000, but the 1.5 million iPhone customer adds was about 200,000 above expectations. Even more importantly, the key profitability gauge of EBITDA came in at $1.3 Billion — half a billion above what many expected.

That combination is fascinating. AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ) also had strong profit numbers, but that happened because they were a bit light on iPhone adds. The expensive subsidy support of the iPhone means that operators almost always either beat their iPhone consensus or profit consensus, but never both in the same quarter. Sprint’s combination of strong iPhone sales and a profit pop is what woke up Wall Street on Thursday.

There are three factors boosting Sprint in 2012 after a very rough 2011. First, the nightmare of the Nextel merger is almost over as Sprint winds down the obsolete iDen service and consolidates its subscriber base on its CDMA network. In the process, Sprint is bleeding hundreds of thousands of iDen subs every quarter while it adds hundreds of thousands of CDMA subscribers. That juggling act is finally drawing to an end in 2013.

Second, T-Mobile is a disaster. Sprint used to split the budget mobile market with T-Mobile while Verizon and AT&T competed for U.S. supremacy among consumers who don’t mind paying top dollar. T-Mobile is coming off a spectacular losing streak — a botched merger attempt with AT&T, an expensive and failed marketing campaign featuring a B-list Welsh actress, a weird attempt to pivot from a deep value brand to a high-tech brand, a CEO transition, and so on.

The current “No More Mr. Nice Girl” ad push is also a dissonant train wreck. Using a Zeta-Jones lookalike actress after the Zeta-Jones branding effort flopped completely is a classic T-Mobile USA move. So is trying to sell the concept that the former budget carrier is now offering better 4G service than AT&T or Verizon. Whether the claim is true or not, consumers don’t believe it for a second. T-Mobile’s constant stumbling is handing Sprint a shot at dominating the value segment.

Third, and perhaps most important reason for Sprint’s rebound, is the greed exhibited by AT&T and Verizon.

These two behemoths have gone on a giddy binge of consumer-hostile initiatives. The list is long and dismal: removal of cheap texting plans, forced unlimited voice plans, tiered pricing with rapidly escalating data prices, etcetera. When Verizon boosted the price of its cheapest available smartphone plan from $70 to $90 it effectively created a 28% price hike for new subscribers not interested in big data packages. It also brought the price of the cheapest Verizon iPhone plan very close to the price of Sprint’s unlimited plan.

What industry leader in America can raise the price of its cheapest product by 28% overnight? Here is Sprint’s shot at finally making a dent in the emerging mobile duopoly in America. Sprint’s unlimited iPhone plan is a fairly good deal for heavy users, and Sprint brands like Virgin and Boost offer solid deals for budget iPhone segment — though the upfront payment in those deals is daunting.

The hegemony of Verizon and AT&T seemed invulnerable, but Sprint may now finally have its chance to chip away at it.