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Sprint posts $1.6 billion loss as Nextel shutdown weighs on bottom line

Sprint posts $1.6 billion loss as Nextel shutdown weighs on bottom line

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Sprint is posting its Q2 financial results, and despite an 8 percent gain in wireless revenue over last year’s figure, it’s still posting a net loss of $1.6 billion — a 150 percent increase over its net Q1 loss of $643 million. Sprint says that the red ink is in large part due to the shutdown of its Nextel iDEN network, which cost it $430 million in accelerated depreciation and another $623 million in noncash charges. The company also reports that it lost more than half of its postpaid iDEN network customers.

That said, there’s light at the end of the tunnel. The company has been acquired by Japanese wireless provider SoftBank for $21.6 billion, including a $5 billion cash infusion that should help move Sprint’s LTE transition, part of its Network Vision strategy. The company says it increased the number of sites it's modernized to 20,000 and hopes to offer LTE service to 200 million people by the end of 2013.