Despite Sprint Nextel Corp.'s (NYSE: S) share price being down more than 50% in the past year, shares were up 7.5% last week -- up 46.5% in the past montyh -- on all the buzz surrounding Sprint lately. There are rumors that Deutsche Telekom (NYSE: DT) may buyout Sprint and merge it into T Mobile. Then there were rumors that Sprint may spin off Nextel (i.e., undo its troubled merger). And there's the excitment around a joint venture with Clearwire Corp. (NASDAQ: CLWR) to create a high-speed wireless internet network that covers most of the U.S.

But when Sprint reports its first-quarter results tomorrow, analysts polled by Thomson Financial expect the company to report earnings of a mere penny per share, down from the same period in 2007 when it earned 18 cents per share, and from the previous quarter's 21 cents per share. The company has beat quarterly estimates over the past year -- by 17.3% in the fourth quarter -- and it certainly has plenty of room to best analysts' low expectations for this past quarter.

Overland Park, Kansas-based Sprint Nextel operates a nationwide digital wireless network with more than 50 million subscribers. In the past year, Sprint's revenues were $40.1 billion. The company's long-term EPS growth forecast is 8.22%, which is less than the 8.67% of rival Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and the S&P 500. The consensus recommendation of analysts continues to be to hold Sprint.

Shares closed Friday at $9.39, up from a 52-week low of $5.48 in March, but still well off the 52-week high of 23.42 last June.

For news that could influence these results, see BloggingStocks' Sprint coverage.