The first quarter was dramatic for wireless operators in the U.S. with Long Term Evolution (LTE) services starting, Verizon Wireless beginning to sell the iPhone and AT&T announcing plans to acquire T-Mobile US Inc. . (See Verizon Finally Gets the iPhone 4 , Verizon Speeds Up LTE Expansion and AT&T to Acquire T-Mobile for $39B.)

The U.S. wireless race has already winnowed to AT&T and Verizon, which went head-to-head on metrics. Verizon added substantially more subscribers in the quarter thanks to the iPhone, but AT&T's bottom line wasn't hurt because of it. Even Sprint Corp. (NYSE: S) held its own thanks to its prepaid business, but the carrier has been telling everyone who'll listen that it's going to get harder for them if AT&T absorbs T-Mobile. (See AT&T Takes the Oath on T-Mobile Merger).

All of the operators, including the smaller players, talked up mobile Internet growth, driven by the adoption of smartphones, particularly Android-based phones, in most cases .

Here's a snapshot of how the top eight operators fared in the first quarter:

Table 1: Tier 1 Wireless Operators' Q1 Earnings

	Verizon Wireless	AT&T	Sprint	T-Mobile
Total Revenue	$27.0 billion	$31.2�billion	$8.3 billion	$5.16 billion
Total Subscribers	104 million	97.5 million	51 million	33.6 million
Postpaid Subscriber Additions	906,000	165,000	-114,000	-471,000
Postpaid ARPU	$53.52	$63.39	$56	$52
Total Postpaid Churn	1.01 percent	1.18 percent	1.81 percent	2.4 percent
Source: VZW, AT&T, Sprint & Deutsche Telekom

Table 2: Tier 2 Operators' Q1 Earnings

	Clearwire	US Cellular	MetroPCS	Leap Wireless
Total Revenue	$242 million	$985.1 million	$1.2 billion	$779.9 million
Total Subscribers	6.15 million	6.1 million	8.9 million	5.8 million
Postpaid Subscriber Additions	1.8 million	Lost 22,000	725,000 (prepaid)	331,000 (prepaid)
Postpaid ARPU	$46.32 (retail)	$51.21	$40.42 (prepaid)	$39.35 (prepaid)
Total Postpaid Churn	3.3 percent (retail)	1.37 percent	3.1 percent (prepaid)	3.1 percent (prepaid)
Source: Clearwire, US Cellular, MetroPCS & Leap Wireless

For more of LR Mobile's first-quarter analysis:

• U.S. Cellular Reports Q1
• Deutsche Telekom Shrinks in Q1
• T-Mobile Suffers in Competitive US Wireless Biz
• Leap Hopes Music Will Muve It Nationwide
• Leap Makes Gains But Reports Q1 Loss
• Clearwire Posts Q1 Loss
• Clearwire Says It Won't Sell Spectrum
• MetroPCS Seeks 'LTE for All' Spectrum
• Sprint Perks Up in Competitive Q1
• AT&T Looks From iPhone to LTE to Increase Subs
• AT&T's iPhone Growth Continues

— Sarah Reedy, Senior Reporter, Light Reading Mobile