Bucking the trend set by AT&T and Verizon, both of which were boosted by their respective wireless businesses in Q1, Sprint Nextel managed to lose a million subscribers in the quarter.

InformationWeek reports that the third-largest US cellco now has 52.8 million customers and expects subscriber numbers to keep falling, at least through Q2.

Sprint has had major problems since it bought Nextel in 2005, and the rumors that it's trying to unload its Nextel unit can't be helping the situation. Neither can the rumors that Sprint itself is a takeover target, including reports last week that Deutsche Telekom might want to acquire Sprint and merge it with its T-Mobile USA unit.