The ratings on Overland Park, Kan.-based wireless carrier Sprint Nextel Corp. reflect a "fair" business risk profile and a "highly leveraged" financial risk profile. Key business risk factors include its weak profitability, which Standard&Poor's Ratings Services expects to deteriorate further in 2012 due to a costly network upgrade and increasing phone subsidies, significant competition from other wireless carriers and maturing industry conditions, execution risks related to its network upgrade, and elevated churn compared with that of its peers. The company's highly leveraged financial risk profile incorporates our expectation for rising debt to EBITDA, ongoing free operating cash flow (FOCF) deficits, and "less than adequate" liquidity. Tempering factors include the company's position as the third-largest wireless carrier in the
