When CEO vet Dan Hesse joined Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) over a year ago, the 20+ year telecom vet probably knew what was in store for him. The third-largest wireless carrier in the U.S. was bleeding subscribers to the competition every quarter, the future of Sprint's 4G high-speed national wireless network was in doubt and the company really did not have a hit product like the iPhone on its shelves.

Add that to the ongoing mess with the Nextel brand and Hesse had one large job to face in the corner office. Although many of those issues still exist today in some form, Hesse will be the first to say that Sprint's in it for the long, successful haul. Still, the company is expected from market analysts to post a quarterly loss of $0.02 per share when it reports Q4 numbers later today. Sprint's Hesse seems to indicate that while Sprint is certainly down, it's nowhere near out.

Although Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) CEO Gary Forsee downplayed the impact of the Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone during the recent release of the company's latest quarterly results, he's shifted his wording a bit now and says that competition from the all-in-one device, along with general economic conditions, could hamper the ability of Sprint to gain new customers in the near future.

Although Sprint is selling wireless handsets like the Samsung UpStage and the LG Muziq to complete with the iPhone, neither sync with Apple's iTunes software -- which is a biggie. Although Sprint has over 100,000 downloadable songs priced at an Apple-esque $0.99 and can beam these purchases right to handsets over the air (no PC required), the iPod/iPhone/iTunes ecosystem Apple has built is one formidable competitor.

While adding only 16,000 post-paid customers in its most recent quarter -- as compared to the millions added by the competition -- Sprint management is probably feeling the heat from investors. How is it going to grow and what is the strategy being undertaken? Forsee stated that "We know we have to produce in order to have investor confidence in the future . . . that's certainly what we intend to do as a company and what I intend to do as chief executive." He has probably two or three more quarters to prove those words beyond a shadow of a doubt or he could be gone. Although Sprint provides fine services, competing with larger rivals AT&T, Inc. (NYSE: T) and Verizon Communications, Inc. (NYSE: VZ) is proving harder each quarter that goes by.

Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S) had a mediocre quarter, but that was an improvement on the recent past. The company still has to pray its national WiMax initiative will draw subscribers when it gets going next year.

Revenue rose about 2% to $10.2 billion. For the second quarter, diluted earnings per share (EPS) from continuing operations were 1 cent, compared with 10 cents a year earlier

Perhaps the most important thing about the wireless company's numbers is that it is not losing customers. According to the company's earnings release: "Post-paid net additions increased more than 235,000 from the first quarter and were a positive 16,000 for the quarter." The churn rate of customers dropped to 2% from 2.3% in Q1, the immediately previous quarter.

Sprint is the odd company that gets a market benefit from not doing worse. If it were doing better, imagine the windfall for shareholders. Over the last year, the company's stock is up about 23%. On earnings news, shares are up another 3% this morning.

Now, the market gets to wait to see if Sprint's bet on WiMax will pay off. The company is using the new wireless broadband standard to build its high-speed network instead of opting for the 3G technology being used by AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ).

It is a Hail Mary pass, but someone may catch it.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.