According to Hesse, the answer to taking both the brand and churn to the next level is the iPhone. He said that Apple was the best brand present in the tech space.

Sprint’s CEO was aware about Apple calling for steeper subsidies, but anticipated that it would certainly be I the future one of the most profitable devices. Bob Azzi, Senior Network VP said that Sprint had built into all the processes the likely load from an iPhone and has been doing this for months.

In order to provide better voice connections, mainly indoors, and to improve data, CDMA voice was moved to 800MHz. Networks have been updated in groups in order to increase the perceived effect. Several weak points in urbanized areas like New York City would be eliminated.

The statements of Sprint’s officials do not clearly confirm rumors, but they support a major leak indicating that the company may have put its future together with Apple. It will still lean on Android devices but through improving the network reputation and offering unlimited data is counting on being a better choice or even the best one. Planning the move to LTE on 4G will future-proof it against an assumed transition to LTE on the iPhone in 2012.

The DOJ promised to protect consumers from the anticompetitive behavior that could result from a transaction of this kind.

AT&T, like in every occasion it has faced opposition to the lawsuit, downplayed the importance of the deal. As the carrier said, such involvement was not uncommon for states, no matter what the deal was. AT&T even went further by trying to demonstrate its numeric advantage given to it by eleven state attorneys general as well as many officials belonging to the federal or local level who were backing the deal.

Even the Democrats, through the voice of fifteen Congress members, supported the company.

Of course there are lawsuits that oppose mergers in the United States, but they occur for a quite small minority of proposed mergers and usually mean there is a possibility for the merger to be denied outright. According to AT&T, the company would negotiate a settlement, but the existence of the lawsuit signifies the Department of Justice does not believe that an amount of divested network areas or some price guarantees could resolve the problem.

Much of the recent action appeared a short time after AT&T posted a version of a filing saying that it needed only $3.8 billion to attain the 95 to 97 percent of LTE coverage the company had promised with the merger. The carrier has officially declared that it still needed to spend about ten times more in order to eliminate one of its major competitors that had the same goal. However, it has never mentioned the direct implications of either having made false statements about its initial needs for LTE or of the necessity of the merger.

AT&T and T-Mobile were also sued by Sprint because it would have to struggle against a rival having majority market share and significantly more control over elements like prices, device choice or network rates.

The Femto Forum suggests that femtocell distribution on all carriers across the nation has reached only 350,000 units. Consequently, Sprint seems to have covered the majority of current users. In spite of the apparently lacklustre figures, Femto Forum’s chairman Simon Saunders hints at personal devices already surpassing the total number of cell towers in the United States.

Sprint’s aggressive price policy is considered to have helped boost the femtocell distribution of the company well beyond that of its competitors. The price of the Airave is $100, while setting customers back another $5 a month for service. However, Femtocells have been distributed without service fees for those customers who live in fringe areas.

Many critics have believed that Verizon would buy Sprint to overcome the deficit of about thirty million subscribers. Sprint has already generated concerns that bringing eighty percent of phone subscribers in the United States on a single network would be anti-competitive. A deal of Sprint and Verizon would lead to a more established duopoly and would make life difficult for US Cellular, or Cricket, or any small carrier.

AT&T has argued that its buyout of T-Mobile would conform to national goals as eighteen of the largest twenty urban areas had at least four carriers, but many of them were hamstrung by either device selection or lack of wireless spectrum which they could use. Either aspect would be exacerbated if the merger of AT&T and T-Mobile finishes within a year.

The lack of a merger with Verizon could be even more damaging for Sprint. The carrier may have the chance to still remain independent, but has only just started to add regular subscription customers, while it is continuing to loose hundreds of millions of dollars quarter after quarter. The announced T-Mobile deal associated with the lack of a Verizon deal for itself would mean cutting off a major source of funding.

Sprint’s decision is not necessarily a particular and definitive sign but it reminds of the ad strategy Verizon itself adopted for the Droid of Motorola. It initially launched the Droid with a series of ads mocking Apple’s device but almost ceased with the comparisons as soon as Verizon and Apple began the testing and co-development of the iPhone.

On the launch of the Evo Shift 4G, Sprint was championing its advantages, but lately changed the tone in public comments regarding the iPhone. CEO Dan Hesse, as well as other representatives, has been deferent to Apple and declined any comment excepting the desire of the company for the presence of the iPhone in its network. Unofficial expectations are that Verizon secured a quasi-exclusivity on a CDMA iPhone 4, while Sprint and probably T-Mobile with a GSM version could have the iPhone 5 in their networks.

This delay may be a hit to the company’s success in the tablet zone, as most of its competitors, such as the iPad of Apple or Android slates like the Xoom from Motorola already benefit from built-in 3G, at least for their latest models. Tablets having 3G have been most popular, despite the cheaper price of Wi-Fi only models. For instance, two thirds of the iPad’s users declared to prefer the 3G version of the tablet.

The PlayBook in its current design is depending partly on a BlackBerry, as it needs a cellular Internet connection as well as complete access to e-mail and contacts.

This year, Microsoft used CES to present the US edition of HTC’s HD2 for T-Mobile. The company is believed to make the new mobile operating system a major element of Ballmer’s keynote for this edition.

The HTC 7 Pro will have a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, a QWERTY keyboard, 8GB of storage, a 3.6-inch touchscreen with a resolution of 480×800, up to 16GB of built-in storage and a five-megapixel camera. The HTC Trophy, already available in European countries on GSM, has a touch-only design, a 3.8-inch touchscreen with a resolution of 480×800, 16GB of onboard storage and a similar camera.

The iPhone was mentioned as not being linked to Sprint and Hesse remained silent on the topic. He did not comment on either the iPhone or relationships with third parties. There is a routine for carriers to avoid talking about deals and to respond actively to such off-hand remarks.

The iPhone and Sprint have been only incidentally linked, most leaks connecting a CDMA model to Verizon, a carrier with twice-as-large customer base, undoubtedly a better target for the expansion of the iPhone. In exchange, Sprint is very close to Android and has launched three models just this month. Being the third-largest network, it might be an option for Apple to eliminate competition from Google.

Sprint is concentrating on Android devices which include its flagship HTC Evo 4G as well as the Epic 4G from Samsung and the BlackBerry Style from Research in Motion. The carrier has about sixty percent of its sales in smartphones and 45 percent of the core user base detains one of the best handsets. Basic phones are still dominating only the carrier’s prepaid brands, such as Virgin Mobile and Boost Mobile. However, these two have seen Android take hold through Samsung Intercept and Motorola i1.

The new Android-based tablet has already been seen in Verizon’s inventory system and, if it will get a Sprint launch, it may receive a similar treatment given to the Galaxy S handset, with a multi-carrier simultaneous release. Samsung’s strategy was successful earlier this year and could be keen to repeat that in order to get a foothold in the USA.

Despite all these facts, pricing may still be an issue. Sprint and Verizon will most probably subsidize the Galaxy Tab down. Even after subsidy, with a likely $900 asking price, the tablet may face tough competition against Apple’s iPad.

The Sprint 4G network uses WiMAX and is able to provide about 3Mbps to 6Mbps in real-world downstream speeds, with plans starting at $30 monthly.