He lowered those prices as a gimmick.
He has no money to build his network.
He has no money to give raises or bonuses. Those 12k bonuses might not seem like much - but they mean a lot to the 25 year old at his competitor he's gunning for sitting under 80K in student loans.
He chose to not offer free mammograms to his employees.
He chose to keep the accessory spiffs in the retail employees.
He chose to not invest in the continued education of his employees.
He made the choice to implement a price plan that is not sustainable, doesn't account for mass device theft via brute force account invasion or social engineering, and he chose a "financing" plan that did not account for major theft and fraud surrounding it.
I've been in this game a long time. It's not going to look the same in 5-6 years. He's not prepared. And the people who know how to build a Carrier's Carrier that support 4 to 5 thousand competitive wireless carriers in the USA (the peak of the CLECs when the telecom bubble burst) - Verizon Wireless sucked us up 7 to 13 years ago. We are all sitting down the road from him now. And those wireline people in the same building hate us probably more than he does.
He can't win. He fucked a lot of us over and well - its personal. We remember his abusement park. It was only a matter of time before he chose a job that went in direct competition to all those people whose 401Ks he stole from.