The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Sprint has entered into an agreement with Apple to purchase over $20 billion worth of iPhones over the next four years — that’s around 30 million iPhones. It’s said that Sprint won’t even break even on the transaction until 2014, which is surely a huge risk on Sprint’s part, but why? I have been going back and forth for weeks with one of my incredibly solid industry contacts on a piece of information that I couldn’t really process at first — information that is so unbelievable, even from a source this solid, that I couldn’t report it. With this new WSJ report on an Apple/Sprint deal, however, it doesn’t look so crazy. Hit the break for more.

I have been told that Sprint will be getting the iPhone 5 — yes the real iPhone 5, not the iPhone 4S — as an exclusive. And it will be a 4G WiMAX device. AT&T and Verizon would launch the iPhone 4S and get the iPhone 5 some time in the first quarter of next year as an LTE device. Globally, the iPhone 5 might be available as a 4G HSPA+ device.

via iPhone 5 — Sprint scores exclusive thanks to $20 billion deal with Apple?.