Telecom giant Sprint Corp. (NYSE: S) reported third-quarter fiscal 2014 earnings before markets opened Thursday. The phone company posted a diluted earnings per share (EPS) loss of $0.60, compared with an EPS loss a year ago of $0.26. Quarterly revenues totaled $8.97 billion, compared with revenues of $9.14 billion in the third quarter of 2013.

The company’s operating loss totaled $2.5 billion, including non-cash charges of $2.1 billion. Adjusted EBITDA totaled $1.04 billion, a drop of 10% compared with the third quarter of 2013. The company wrote down $1.9 billion in the value of its trade name and $200 million in the carrying value of its wireline network assets. Excluding the non-cash charges, the company said it improved its operating loss by $169 million from the prior year quarterly loss of $576 million.

Sprint added 30,000 postpaid (contract) subscribers in the third quarter, its highest total in three years. Compared with a loss of 272,000 in the prior quarter, postpaid subscriber numbers improved by 302,000. The company claims a net 892,000 new subscribers in the quarter and a total of nearly 56 million connections at the end of the third quarter.

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Those numbers came at a cost though. Average revenue per user fell nearly $5 compared with the third quarter of 2013. The company’s “cut your bill in half” promotion comes at a price, and that price will have to be paid either by vast increases in subscribers or much lower costs. Even backing out the non-cash charge of $2.1 billion, Sprint’s net operating expenses for the first nine months of the year total $23.36 billion, compared with $17.85 billion in 2013, and the number of connections is just 400,000 higher.

The company’s CEO said:

We are pleased with the growth in sales in the quarter and the improving quality of our customer base as we begin our turnaround plan. However, we acknowledge there is a long way to go to reach our goals, including lowering our postpaid churn rates to competitive levels. Our network performance continues to improve, and we are now focused on a strategy that will unlock the true potential of our spectrum assets.

The company offered no guidance and had nothing to say about reported discussions with RadioShack regarding acquiring leases to about half of RadioShack’s 4,300 locations. Maybe that will come up in the conference call.

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Sprint’s stock traded about 0.5% higher in Thursday’s premarket, at $4.60 in a 52-week range of $3.79 to $9.76. The consensus price target is $7.28 before the announcement.

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