RE: "I really am no longer concerned about the future of Sprint."

Dan Hesse sure seems concerned. Concerned enough to spend a whopping amount of precious cashflow on (a) lobbying multiple federal agencies, and (b) bringing their own lawsuit against the ATT+T-Mo merger. Hesse also risked what could have been a major PR backfire if Sprint had been perceived as the industry crybaby. You might not be concerned, but Hesse & his board certainly are.

The sheer economics of the Big Two (ATT & VZ) alone could keep Sprint in such a profit & cashflow bind that Sprint will never achieve critical mass. Simply introducing the iPhone to Sprint's CDMA network will begin burning the candle at both ends and in the middle: (1) Sprint will have to heavily subsidize the handset, which will cut deeply into cashflow, (2) that reduced cashflow will mean Sprint won't be able to invest in network improvements, which it will surely need, and (3) the massive increase in iPhone data consumption will begin to hurt the CDMA network performance. Perhaps Sprint's CDMA is not overwhelmed right now, but if Sprint is successful with the iPhone and it's continued Unlimited plans, Sprint could well be cannibalizing itself.

Funny, what Sprint did to Nextel, is increasingly likely to happen to Sprint itself, courtesy of Verizon. Karma, I guess.