Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, Denise Torres

This is gonna cut into the $670 million the company stands to make from the sale of its cell towers... a California court has ruled that Sprint's early termination fees are unlawful, and has ordered it to refund $73 million to its former customers.

"The ruling requires Sprint to pay $18.2 million in cash to those customers that actually paid off Sprint on their early termination fees - the remaining $54.7 million will be credited to customers who were charged the ETF but did not yet pay," writes Will at IntoMobile.

"Sprint will have about two weeks to come up with a response before a final decision is made in Alameda County, California Superior Court," writes InformationWeek's Marin Perez.

"The Federal Communications Commission is considering regulating early termination fees on a nationwide basis," notes Wired's David Kravets. "The FCC is also weighing whether to block class-action lawsuits like the Sprint case. No timetable for a decision has been set."

More here from Wireless and Mobile News ... more here from Dow Jones ... more here from the AP ... and more here from Bloomberg.