Despite a struggling economy and heavy competition from the iPhone on AT&T's network, Verizon Wireless grew its wireless customer base by 27.7 percent year over year, ending the second quarter with 87.8 million total customers.

The operator announced total operating revenues of $26.9 billion, representing an 11 percent increase from the previous year.

Verizon said it isn't losing customers to AT&T, despite the operator's grip on the iPhone, and said the device was actually good for business because it is driving overall smartphone sales. The company declined to say whether it was in talks with Apple for a CDMA version of the iPhone after the company's exclusive contract with AT&T is up.

The operator did, however, say that the Palm Pre smartphone, exclusive right now to Sprint Nextel, will arrive on the Verizon Wireless network early next year. COO Denny Strigl also said a second-generation BlackBerry Storm and Android-based devices are on the way too.

Verizon also said it will be trailing its 4G network based on Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology in Seattle and Boston later this year, with an aim toward launching commercially in up to 30 markets next year.

Meanwhile, AT&T announced it added 1.4 million subscribers in the second quarter. Thanks to the new iPhone 3GS, which was released on June 19, AT&T saw record iPhone activations in the quarter. The 2.4 million activations accounted for nearly half of the 5.2 million iPhones Apple said it sold in the quarter worldwide. Of the 2.4 million activations, one third were new customers to AT&T, meaning the iPhone was responsible for more than half of AT&T's 1.4 million net new subscribers in the second quarter.

For more:
- check out this eWeek article
- see this Rethink Wireless article

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