Sprint iPhone 5 Release Date: It Could Mark a New Era

For Sprint cell phone and mobile access subscribers, this could be your day, your week, your month, or even your year, to paraphrase the popular Friends theme song -- as Apple's iPhone 5 may very well be available on the Sprint network on Oct. 7, a date on which the company has scheduled a media event.

For subscribers who've hung in there with Sprint -- and given Sprint's pitfalls and pratfalls, we mean really hanging in there -- the opportunity to sign a user contract for the new iPhone -- perhaps even a contract that includes a healthy discount (or a subsidized iPhone), represents a reward for loyalty to Sprint. Maybe even a reward for time in battle, almost.

Sprint and the iPhone 5: A Duo?

Still, putting the words Sprint and iPhone 5 in the same sentence sounds a little funny.

For much of the mobile age, Sprint has been synonymous with inadequate service, a substandard network, poor customer service, all capped off by the dropped call that almost became Sprint's sartorial trademark.

Then there's the ubiquitous iPhone that became synonymous with ahead-of-the-curve, user friendly smartphone technology -- all packaged in a Steve Jobs-cool sleek design.

Talk About an Image Change

But if Sprint -- the Rodney Dangerfield of cell phone service providers -- can begin selling the iPhone 5 in October, the company may not be transformed in to the Kim Kardashian of its set, but at least it will keep the No. 3 mobile service in the same league with Verizon and AT&T.

In all fairness, Sprint's network and customer service have improved over the past three years and it now has a decent line of smartphones and related devices. The new iPhone could help Sprint continue its modest improved momentum. And when you've struggled a long time for commercial success like Sprint, any business win is significant.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect Sprint to post 2011 revenue of $33.47 billion and 2012 revenue of $34.23 billion. Sprint recorded revenue of $32.6 billion in 2010.