US cellco Sprint Nextel has reported net operating revenues of USD8.843 billion for the three months ended 30 June 2012, a 6% improvement on the USD8.311 billion booked in 2Q11. In terms of operating income, Sprint posted a loss of USD629 million, compared to a profit of USD79 million during the corresponding period in 2011. Adjusted OIBDA for the period under review was USD1.451 billion, up 10% from USD1.314 billion one year earlier. Sprint reported a net loss of USD1.374 billion for the quarter, compared to a net loss of USD847 million in 2Q11.
In operational terms, Sprint served more than 56 million wireless customers at the end of June 2012. This figure includes 32.6 million post-paid subscribers, 15.4 million pre-paid users and approximately 8.4 million wholesale and affiliate subscriptions. The carrier confirmed that the shut-down of 9,600 obsolete iDEN ‘Nextel’ sites is now complete, and noted that around 60% of the 688,000 users leaving the Nextel platform have been ‘recaptured’ by Sprint’s CDMA network.
In other news, the cellco has announced that it will be extending its in-deployment Long Term Evolution (LTE) network to four new markets ‘before Labor Day’, which falls on 3 September this year. The 4G network will go live in Baltimore (Maryland), Gainesville (Georgia), Manhattan/Junction City (Kansas) and Sherman-Denison (Texas). As reported by TeleGeography’s CommsUpdate, earlier this month Sprint inaugurated commercial LTE services on 15 July, with a total of 15 cities initially receiving coverage. The locations are: Atlanta, Athens, Calhoun, Carrollton, Newnan and Rome (all Georgia); Dallas, Fort Worth, Granbury-Hood County, Houston, Huntsville, San Antonio and Waco (all Texas) and Kansas City and St. Joseph (Missouri). By the end of 2013 Sprint expects to have largely completed the build out of its nationwide LTE network – with an enhanced 3G network – covering 250 million people across the US.