Sprint is abandoning its plans to acquire T-Mobile

After months of arguing that it couldn’t compete effectively without a merger partner,Sprint Corp. is preparing to go it alone. The company decided Tuesday to end its pursuit of T-Mobile US Inc. in the face of stiff opposition from regulators and replace Chief Executive Dan Hesse with Marcelo Claure, a billionaire entrepreneur who is untested as a wireless operator. The decisions, made at a Sprint board meeting Tuesday, put an end to a deal that would have valued T-Mobile at $32 billion and created a more muscular rival to market leaders Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc. Instead, Sprint will have to try to bulk up the hard way—by launching a fierce fight to rebuild its subscriber rolls after shedding customers for years. An extensive network overhaul has hurt service quality and made it difficult for the country’s third largest wireless carrier to recruit customers aggressively. But much of that work is now done, and Sprint said last week it is testing new price plans in preparation for a strong push later this year.