AT&T's Wireless Growth Sets the Stage

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- AT&T's (T Quote) costly pact with Apple (AAPL Quote) to sell the iPhone has landed a bounty of new customers in the third quarter.

Ma Bell reports earnings before the bell Thursday, and some analysts are expecting blowout subscriber growth in the range of 2 million net new users total, and about 1.5 million in new post-paid contract subscribers. That would be a huge improvement over the second quarter, when AT&T reported 1.4 million net new users with 1.2 million of those being post-paid subscribers.

Apple's fiscal fourth-quarter blowout iPhone sales -- 7.9 million units -- suggests that big partners like AT&T, Telefonica (TEF Quote) and Rogers (RCI Quote) sold a lot of the iconic device.

This is not particularly good news for the rest of the sector.

Verizon (VZ Quote), Sprint (S Quote) and Deutsche Telecom's (DT Quote) T-Mobile are not expected to report very good subscriber numbers for the third quarter, according to a survey of analysts by TheStreet.

Verizon should report roughly 1 million net new subscribers, a decent performance considering the company lacks a strong iPhone alternative. Sprint is expected to continue its losing ways. Analysts surveyed by TheStreet expect the No. 3 telco to lose about 250,000 customers, closely repeating the 257,000 net subscriber departures in the second quarter.

The big loser in this race appears to be T-Mobile, which analysts expect may have swung to a net loss of customers for the first time in the third quarter.

This is all hugely important as the crucial fourth-quarter holiday season approaches.