It hasn’t been a good month for Sprint. Things already had gotten dismal last week when it reported it shed 1.3 million subscribers despite its turn-around efforts. But the Illinois Supreme Court wasn’t feeling much sympathy. It gave Sprint 360 days to shut down its Nextel iDEN networkin small-and mid-sized markets throughout the Midwest where Sprint affiliate iPCS operates.

As you’ll recall, the iDEN network is the same network Sprint just committed to rejuvenating after the FCC gave it another 18 months to relocate its iDEN spectrum to another portion of the 800 MHz band. In truth, Sprint had little choice to reinvest in iDEN. It couldn’t just flip off a system supporting 14.6 million customers, and by virtue of the rebanding agreement, it must spend the cash necessary to retune its iDEN infrastructure. But being forced to shut down networks doesn’t really say “rejuvenation.” more