All Things Digital

What do you do when you’ve just posted a $29.5 billion loss and you expect to lose 1.2 million customers this quarter, as many as you lost in all of 2007? Well, if you’re Sprint (S), you announce a $99.99 unlimited calling and data services plan.

This morning the nation’s third-largest wireless carrier recorded a massive fourth-quarter loss, suspended its dividend program for the ”foreseeable future,” borrowed $2.5 billion to improve its “financial flexibility” and announced a shiny, new discount service plan presumably intended to make everyone forget about its deteriorating business. Sprint’s ”Simply Everything” plan offers unlimited “voice, data, text, email, Web surfing, Sprint TV, Sprint Music, GPS navigation, Direct Connect and Group Connect” for $99.99 a month.

Not bad for a package of services for which customers have typically paid a premium. Trouble is, it’s relatively close to the $99 price point plans introduced by Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile earlier this year. Granted, Sprint’s plan is the only one that includes data right now, but it likely won’t be for long. Certainly, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse doesn’t see it as a cure-all for Sprint’s problems. “I want to make it clear that it’s not a silver bullet,” he said during a conference call with analysts. “But it’s a very important piece. Our business is not performing well right now. We are working aggressively to turn this around, but our financial performance will not improve overnight.”

Sprint Nextel is making good on its pledge last week to cut 4,000 employees, and it’s doing it at “Sprint Speed.”

This morning the long-suffering wireless carrier announced some “key leadership changes,” sacking three top executives. Leaving are Chief Financial Officer Paul Saleh, Chief Marketing Officer Tim Kelly, and Mark Angelino, president of Sprint’s sales and distribution unit.

Their last day is tomorrow. Interim replacements will serve in their stead until the company appoints permanent ones. “I want to thank each of these individual leaders for their dedication and contributions to Sprint Nextel,” Dan Hesse, Sprint’s president and CEO, said in a statement. “I wish them all the best in their future endeavors.”

Sprint Nextel ended its two-month search for a new chief executive today, offering Dan Hesse ousted CEO Gary Forsee’s old office.

Hesse was formerly the CEO of Embarq, a local telco that Sprint spun off last year, and once ran AT&T’s mobile-phone business, so he’s certainly got the chops for the job. “His history in wireless is impeccable,” said IAG Research analyst Roger Entner. “He is certainly the best person that is currently available. Dan did a miraculous job at AT&T Wireless. If they would have kept him on as CEO, the wireless industry would look very different. AT&T would have remained a force to be reckoned with, rather than a company that just sort of withered away.”

Perhaps. Question is, can Hesse work similar miracles at Sprint, where operational troubles, falling subscriber numbers and declining profits are dragging the company deep into the mud.