Is AT&T Still More Popular Than Sprint and Verizon?

The telecommunications giant isn't just the leading cellular carrier among existing customers. Future subscribers are turning to AT&T as well.

In a survey regarding

, ChangeWave Research asked 1,604 business IT buyers whether or not they plan to buy a tablet for their employees, and if so, which brand they plan to choose. More than 20% of the respondents said they were planning to buy a tablet for their employees, and 84% of those tablet seekers

. ChangeWave Research then posed one final question to the survey participants: which wireless service provider will your company use for your tablets? A meager 11% said that they didn't plan to get a wireless service, indicating that their company's needs would be met by whatever Wi-Fi connection was available in the office. Twenty-six percent were undecided on the matter, selecting “other/don't know,” while 29% said they'd go with Verizon

. Only 4% were interested in using Sprint's

service. But to be fair, Sprint did not have an iPad at the time the survey was conducted. And as of this writing, Sprint's portfolio is still without an Apple

tablet. That leaves AT&T

as the last remaining option. As the nation's current leader in wireless services (and the first to receive a 3G iPad), it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that the company came in first place with 30% of respondents saying they plan to use AT&T with their tablet selection.

This is an important win for AT&T, which faced a slate of new competitors last year when Sprint and Verizon finally acquired deals with Apple to sell the world's most popular (and now the world's fastest-selling) smartphone, the iPhone. Ultimately, AT&T did not appear to suffer; when the last iPhone was released, the company was the first to brag about its milestone of

. But if some of the new (first-time) iPhone customers chose a competing cellular carrier, AT&T could count those consumers as a “loss,” even though it never had them to begin with. In any case, AT&T has acquired an extra dose of bragging rights with the ChangeWave Research survey results, which show that even in a highly competitive market, consumers and business professionals will still choose AT&T.

When the new iPad was unveiled, many were surprised that Sprint wasn't on the list of companies to receive the device. For those of you who aren't aware, this was an unavoidable outcome; the new iPad uses 4G LTE, a feature Sprint is not yet fully equipped to support. But when the company rolls out its long-awaited 4G LTE coverage, it is wholly possible that Apple will bring the new iPad (which will then be the “current” iPad as we anticipate the release of the iPad 4) to Sprint's network. After all – Apple didn't wait for the iPhone 4S to bring the iPhone 4 to Verizon. The company jumped ahead and brought over the old model, knowing that there were enough customers to embrace the launch. Don't be surprised if Apple does the same for the current iPad by bringing it to Sprint.