The world of mergers in wireless and media delivery is coming to a critical junction. True convergence is finally here, and there are winners and losers. AT&T-DirecTV and now Dish and T-Mobile are just a part of this. The question here is what all of this means for Sprint Corp. (NYSE: S).

24/7 Wall St. has often considered what entity would want to own Sprint. The regulatory climate today got in the way of a Sprint and T-Mobile US Inc. (NYSE: TMUS) merger, supposedly because regulators like four major carriers, even if one of those carriers just cannot operate at levels at which it can make a profit.

So, again, where does this leave Sprint? If AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) is going to have a media delivery empire via DirecTV (NASDAQ: DTV) to merge in with the U-verse outfit, and if Dish Network Corp. (NASDAQ: DISH) is acquiring or merging with T-Mobile, are there any players who could emerge to want Sprint?

Despite a deal now looking possible for Charlie Ergen’s Dish Network, and even after a 5% gain on Thursday, the stock was about 10% shy of a 52-week high. Do dividends matter? Neither Dish nor T-Mobile pay dividends to their shareholders – and neither does Sprint for that matter.

Another consideration here is that Sprint is now effectively a tracking stock after the Softbank deal. Sprint’s market cap is almost $18 billion, versus $34 billion for Dish and $32 billion for T-Mobile. Despite having $34.5 billion in revenue for its last year, Sprint posted a loss from continuing operations of -$3.345 billion.

Without endlessly posing questions here: Sprint’s big problem is that it is the one carrier of size that is losing serious money. The carrier’s offerings are now so cheap that it gets real hard to see how it can make up the losses. Can you make up losses in volume if every sign-up loses money? For that matter, does Sprint really lose money on its endless sign-up gimmicks?

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Another issue to consider for Sprint here is that its books have a loadstone of $32.5 billion in long-term debt, and that doesn’t even address almost $18 billion more combined in long-term charges that were deferred and other liabilities. For a buyer to acquire Sprint, assuming it is not a stock deal, it probably requires more debt.

Also, Sprint has made this new huge push with the RadioShack stores, after that retailer went belly up on its own. So this brings more points of sale, but what if all or the majority of those new sign-ups come with years of losses?

Sprint did make its acquisition of Clearwire in the past, but Sprint stopped taking new customers and has now sent formal notices that the CLEAR/Clearwire service will be shut down entirely:

Sprint is in the process of implementing major enhancements to the Sprint 4G LTE Network, including the deployment of Sprint Spark, an enhanced LTE network capability, by repurposing the CLEAR 4G (WiMAX) Network and Clearwire Expedience Network.

As a valued customer, we are providing you formal notice that Sprint will cease operating the CLEAR 4G (WiMAX) Network and Clearwire Expedience Network on November 6, 2015 at 12:01AM EST.

When you get notices that you are a valued customer and that your service is being shut down, does that create goodwill on the books or the unusual case of ‘ill-will’ for future customer acquisition?

The last question is what this means for Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ). Verizon took on a massive amount of debt to help fund the purchase of the Vodafone stake in Verizon Wireless. That puts Verizon in the position that its shareholders almost certainly will not want to see more debt taken on here. Besides an ability for Verizon to do a deal, its $196 billion is huge, but it is not too big to make it immune from shareholders. The company already has $195 billion or so in combined long-term debt, deferred long-term liability charges and other liabilities on its books.

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The conclusion here is that it is hard to imagine what the future holds for Sprint. CNBC’s David Faber said that a T-Mobile deal with Dish could be weeks away. Still, even if that deal were to get interrupted, it is hard to imagine that Dish’s Charlie Ergen would want to buy a company like Sprint and its 56 million in total platform subscribers if it is losing money on the lion share of them.

Sprint simply seems, at least for now, as though it is being left high and dry. If someone wants to be an acquirer or a virtual white knight, they are just not evident. They may even have to speak a different language than most of the business leaders in America and inside Sprint.

The gap-down to $4.53 on Thursday, after closing at $4.75 on Wednesday, was bad enough on the surface. It just looks like investors in Sprint are starting to figure out that Sprint has limited options on its own, which was why the 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time price on Sprint was down 5.3% at $4.50 and on what appears to be destined for more than double an average day’s share trading volume of 13.5 million shares.

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