• May 13, 2008

After losing more than a million customers in the last quarter, Sprint Nextel said it may seek to sell some assets as its net loss grew to $505 million.

The beleaguered wireless operator posted a first-quarter loss of 18 cents a share--up from $211 million, or 7 cents a share in the year-earlier period. Sprint lost 1.07 million contract customers in the quarter--fewer than expected--and said declines would improve marginally during the second-quarter.

CEO Dan Hesse declined to say during an analyst conference call Monday whether the company was considering selling off Nextel, as reported last week in The Wall Street Journal. But he said no options were off the table completely.

Sprint last week announced plans to team up with Clearwire Corp. to build the first national Wimax network. Sprint would be majority owner of the network that would be up to five times faster than those of its wireless rivals.

--Mark Walsh