Sprint is losing money and laying off about 2,000 employees, the company announced today. Despite new offers designed to undercut the competition, Sprint lost 272,000 postpaid customers in the most recent quarter.

Sprint did gain 35,000 prepaid customers and reported "wholesale net additions of 827,000," largely from businesses that resell Sprint network services under their own names. But with $8.5 billion in quarterly revenue, Sprint posted an operating loss of $192 million. The loss was an improvement over the $358 million loss posted in the same period last year.

At T-Mobile US, the story is both similar and different. T-Mobile continued strong customer growth, announcing last week that it had its "best quarter ever" with 1.4 million new postpaid customers and another 411,000 prepaid additions. But T-Mobile didn't make a profit either, reporting $7.4 billion in revenue and $94 million in net losses. It was the fifth time in six quarters that T-Mobile posted net losses.

Sprint tried to prop itself up by purchasing T-Mobile US this year but gave up on the merger attempt after federal regulators made it clear they didn't want any of the big four national carriers to consolidate. T-Mobile is up to 52.9 million customers, while Sprint has 53.9 million.

Sprint said it plans to keep improving its network but will also cut costs. "Sprint is undertaking a comprehensive review of all expenses to optimize its cost structure and is targeting $1.5 billion of annualized cost reductions compared to 2014 spending levels," the company said today. "As part of the cost reduction efforts, the company is announcing additional headcount reductions of approximately 2,000 positions. Inclusive of recent work force actions, total labor cost is expected to decline $400 million on an annualized basis which will include internal and external labor costs."

Sprint has acknowledged that its network is not as good as AT&T's and Verizon's, and the company said it needs to offer more cost-effective plans to attract and keep customers. Sprint boosted its data offerings without raising prices, forcing AT&T and Verizon to do the same.

Sprint tried to put a positive spin on its latest earnings announcement, saying new offers such as unlimited data for $50 per month has "repositioned [Sprint] as the best value in wireless."

Both Sprint and T-Mobile could benefit from a planned auction that will shift desirable spectrum from TV broadcasters to wireless carriers, but the Federal Communications Commission recently delayed the auction from 2015 to early 2016.