• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, September 1, 2011

Perhaps no other company was as pleased with the Department of Justice suing to block AT&T's proposed $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile as Sprint. The nation's No. 3 wireless carrier mounted an aggressive lobbying and marketing campaign against the deal, which would have left it even farther behind the two biggest industry players: AT&T and Verizon Wireless.

For now, it can breathe a little easier. "The DOJ today delivered a decisive victory for consumers, competition and our country. By filing suit to block AT&T's proposed takeover of T-Mobile, the DOJ has put consumers' interests first," the company said in a statement Wednesday.

The legal challenge will allay immediate concerns about the deal. The carrier has experienced a recent resurgence powered by its expansion of 4G services and selection of Android devices.

Sprint has had three consecutive quarters of subscriber and revenue growth. In the second quarter, the company added 1.1 million net new customers, including 226,000 contract subscribers. That still was not enough to pull it out of the red: It posted a loss of $847 million, or 28 cents a share, compared with a loss of $760 million, or 25 cents a share a year ago.

Even so, a new Yankee Group report argues Sprint is well positioned to take on its major carrier rivals by providing an unlimited mobile data plan and a high level of customer service. The study points out that the company's customer-satisfaction rating continues to rise each year, averaging 7.8 out of 10 this year, compared to 7.2 last year. That puts it second only to Verizon.

Furthermore, satisfaction rankings for Sprint subscribers with Android phones averaged 8.3 out of 10, the highest score for any smartphone user segment across the four national carriers. According to a Yankee Group survey, Sprint customers are more likely to buy Android smartphones (59%) than those on other carriers.

That is partly a result of Sprint's aggressive promotion of Android devices, including the HTC EVO 4G, HTC Hero and Samsung Moment. Of course, the latest rumor is that Sprint will be the next U.S. carrier to get the iPhone. The Wall Street Journalreported last week that Sprint will begin selling the signature Apple device in mid-October.

Although it could be 2012 before Apple would be able to offer a 4G phone, that could help Sprint "grow dramatically in only a few quarters, based on consumers wanting to defect from the complexity, costs and tiered pricing of its two biggest rivals," wrote Yankee analyst Carl Howe.

Sprint has touted in television ads and elsewhere that it is the only major carrier left that does not cap mobile data use or throttle data speeds, since AT&T switched to usage-based pricing in June.

Not surprisingly, Sprint's customers used an average of 23.2 MB of data per day in April 2011 -- nearly double the average use on the second-highest-ranking carrier, T-Mobile.

In addition to the arrival of the iPhone, the Yankee report also points to new cell technology as a catalyst for new growth at Sprint. The company is replacing much of its 3G and 4G cell hardware with more sophisticated, multimode radios that can work on any of its existing networks.

And if the AT&T-T-Mobile merger does not go forward, that would open the door to a potential Sprint deal with T-Mobile. If not an acquisition outright, then possibly a network-sharing deal with an independent T-Mobile. That would mean the two smaller wireless guys teaming up against the two bigger ones.

The Yankee Report even suggested that in reviewing the AT&T-T-Mobile deal, the Federal Communications Commission could look to Sprint as a model for cooperative business models.

"Sprint has recovered from its decline -- not by amassing more assets, but by adopting a virtual telco model where it outsources many aspects of its business to other companies, while retaining marketing, brand management and customer service," wrote Howe.