Sprint to push network investment: CEO

NEW YORK - Sprint will accelerate investment in its network as it plots a future as a stand-alone company, its CEO said on Wednesday, days after the No. 4 U.S. wireless carrier and rival T-Mobile said merger talks had failed.

Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure said at an investor conference the company could spend more than its previous guidance of $5 billion to $6 billion per year on capital expenditures, and that cash on hand could dip next year as it builds out its network.

'We came to the realization that we're still far away from what the Sprint network can actually deliver,” Claure said on Wednesday. 'I don't think we've put all our assets to work.”

Sprint and No. 3 U.S. wireless carrier T-Mobile said on Saturday they have called off merger talks to create a combined wireless company to rival market leaders AT&T and Verizon Communications.

Claure said on Wednesday that talks fell through because SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son was not prepared to relinquish control of Sprint. SoftBank owns a majority of Sprint shares.

'We're always going to be open to looking at possible alternatives,” he said, adding that 'we believe that eventually there's going to need to be a tie-up between a telco and a cable company.”