Before last year I didn't really care how Sprint was doing as long as I had service. Once I got my iPhone and there wasn't LTE i started poking around.
Sprint has all the elements now. It just remains to be seen if the business can overcome a culture that lies, makes excuses and avoids personal responsibility and make those elements work.
Masayoshi Son has recently said the turnaround could take up to two years. One analyst adjusted his predictions of customer loss for Sprint to 1.2 million customers next year. Sprint no longer has Nextel to hide it's customer churn behind anymore so we'll see.
Personally, I think Son just bought his own Nextel. But either way, as a customer I win. Because honestly, Sprint's at the bottom. Network improvements, I win. Merger with another company, I win. Sprint beating my expectations and doing great, I win.
I think thats a fair time frame to start seeing the results of network vision. Sprint's unlimited will go the way of the son (pun intended) and thats made clear through their unlimited for life ads. They plan on pulling the plug its just the matter of when the company stops the bleeding and stays profitable in order for that change to be made. As you said they can't hide behind Nextel anymore so it should be interesting times ahead.
I can't say I agree about Mr. Son buying his own Nextel though. Sprint in its current form, although improving, is still pretty terrible. However, looking at it from a technical standpoint they have the spectrum they need to become a major player they just did not have the capital. With Softbanks money and Sprint's wireless resources they have the potential to be a major player against the big two. They freed up all that 800 Mhz spectrum shutting down the iDEN sites which I believe I read they will allocate to LTE. It's just the matter of time at this point.
But like you said, the consumer wins irregardless, this duopoly needs to stop.