T-Mobile reported 981,000 new net subscribers for the 1st quarter bringing its total up to 30.8 million. T-Mobile continues to make the transition from the tiny Tier I to a large operator in its own right. It was helped along by its the closing of its acquisition of SunCom Mobile in February, which added another 1.1 million subscribers (not included in the net adds) to its roles. Still, T-Mobile has a long way to go to catch up to the big three. AT&T ended the quarter with 71.4 million subs, and Verizon Wireless with 67.2 million. Sprint, the No. 3 and most struggling operator, still hasn’t reported its Q1 results (coming Monday), but it had 54 million customers at the end of 2007. Of course, T-Mobile may being doing a lot better in the customer count in the next few quarters if any of the swirling rumors about Deutsche Telekom buying Sprint prove true–operationally, that would be another story. 

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