AT&T surpasses Verizon to become the largest carrier in the U.S.

AT&T released their Q4 2010 earnings report today and, after reaching 95.5 million subscribers at the end of December, they've managed to wrestle the title of "America's Largest Carrier" away from Verizon. Big Red has been the biggest carrier in the nation ever since their acquisition of Alltel, but their 94.1 million total at the end of the fourth quarter wasn't enough to hold off ATT and their 2.8 million additions. The only question is, with the Verizon iPhone's launch looming, will they be able to keep their crown?

Many are predicting that, even though there will almost certainly be a new iPhone 5 in June or July, millions of customers are still going to jump ship from AT&T to Verizon for the iPhone next month. I've no doubt that there will be a fair number of switchers, but AT&T's got some upcoming devices that could convince its customers to stick around. Of course, they'll get the next-gen iPhone, but there's also the Atrix 4G, Inspire 4G, and Infuse 4G for all of the Android lovers out there. While I wouldn't be surprised if Verizon regained the "biggest carrier" title in Q1 thanks to customers jumping ship, things are going to be pretty competitive going forward.