Sprint moving to a packet-switched network
Sprint plans move to packet-switch network
Back when packet-switched networks were just a theory, their inventors (government researchers) were sent to the phone company, a big believer of circuit-switching, for help implementing it. The phone company execs were in shock. "You mean, tear down the connection in the middle of a call?" The packet-switching guys promptly killed the project. For it was better to leave packet-switching as an uncompleted experiment than a failed one that no one would dare repeat.
Times have changed.
The big question is what took so long. Entrenchment would be my guess. But it's good that it's finally being pursued.
They list two benefits: cost reduction and new features. I bet the former is the driving force, and is far more important than the latter. While features might cause people to choose you, telecom is not a fun place to be, where prices for services are quickly driven down to a profit-less level. Get to a profitable level first. Then features to bring people to your services.