Sprint, the number four telecom company, hasn’t been able to match the offering to customers as compared to its three rivals. Other major carriers have stolen the telecom market, but Sprint still plays the “zero sum” game in the industry. Brand, power distribution and quality in a business where all the other major companies have similar products and nearly the same subscription plan.

Verizon communication and AT&T have around 250 million subscriptions. While AT&T and Verizon are barely growing, Sprint is losing ground and T-Mobile is growing. Both the companies lack the balance sheet heft of the other two. Eventually, it shows up in infrastructure, marketing strategies and the capability to bid for spectrum.

While T-Mobile and Sprint have done well in quality ranking, they are dominated by AT&T and Verizon. In a recent survey, Verizon and AT&T did well and these carriers ranked close to each other. For other smaller carriers to take market share, each of them has to boast some superiority in their respective services.

Among the most important weapons of the carriers, discounts that they offer have been the most promising. This has now become a game of parity. One company offers a free phone with the subscription packages and the other one tries to match up to deliver an attractive offer at a lower price on data, voice and text. Consumers later realize that their charges are almost the same, but the offers are quite different. Some carriers may have unskilled management trying to make offers attractive enough to not lose a meaningful portion of their business.

Over the course of the past few years, Sprint’s share has pathetically fallen 22% while AT&T and Verizon are quite close to one another. T-Mobile growth however ranks highest by 45%. Though all these companies are in fiber and landline business, their major prospects are in wireless.