There are times my head spins when I read articles stating things that have been obvious since the 1984 Divestiture of AT&T. Analysts galore are pointing fingers at Hesse and screaming: “Sprint Nextel is still doing badly.  Sprint Nextel is facingnever ending competiton.”   What did people expect Dan Hesse to do turn the company around into a zero debt and positive cash flow position in one year?  Do people actually think the telecom business is static?

The fact he is losing fewer customers in this environment is a miracle. Now is 2010 a critical year for him and Sprint Nextel? Yes, because he needs to create new revenues and stabilize the company by drastically slowing down customer loss.

Analysts seem to forget one thing. All of the big cellular carriers’ cost structures are designed for the postpaid world. More importantly, the way in which analysts value a carrier is based on a postpaid model. I have said this many times in the past.

The prepaid industry has Sprint Nextel to thank for forcing the hands of Verizon Wireless and AT&T mobility in joining the prepaid fray. Don’t thank MetroPCS or Leap. When Sprint jumped into prepaid that is when things got interesting.

Sprint has the opportunity to force the next change in the wireless industry – 4G based prepaid data and media, flatrate voice, and targeted enterprise services.