Sprint, a Distant No. 3, Limps Into the Future

Shed a tear for the late, great unlimited wireless data plan. Neither AT&T nor Verizon Wireless offers it to new customers. AT&T, which ended its deal in 2010, grandfathered in users who had unlimited plans. Verizon stopped offering the plans a year ago. But in March, AT&T began putting speed limits on its heaviest data users. And in June, Verizon announced that upgrading customers would not be eligible for subsidized phones if they stayed on unlimited plans.

That leaves Sprint Nextel as the last refuge for data obsessives. The provider, with 56 million customers, now uses the tag line “Truly Unlimited” in ads and vows to stick to that deal as the industry migrates to speedy next-generation networks based on a technology called 4G LTE. It’s either savvy marketing or a sign of desperation from the perennial No. 3, which has posted five straight years of losses. “They need the subscribers,” says John Butler, a telecom analyst with Bloomberg Industries. “Unlimited is their only hook.”