By subscriber count, Verizon had vaulted into first place by a pretty comfortable margin following its Alltel acquisition, but AT&T added significantly more customers this last quarter than Big Red did -- and just like that, the battle for first place among the US national carriers is starting to get hot again. Verizon added 997,000 customers (excluding acquisitions) in the July through September period versus AT&T's beefy 2.6 million, meaning AT&T now stands at some 92.8 million -- just 400,000 or so fewer that Verizon's headcount. Nothing like an exclusive iPhone launch
