Analysts are expecting AT&T to have a rough fourth quarter due in part to increasing competition.

AT&T's competitors T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon are throwing around deals left and right in an effort to increase churn and bring over subscribers from rival networks. It seems however that in spite of all this, AT&T is playing it very cool regarding their promotions. In fact, it seems that AT&T is being by far the least proactive in regards to customer retention and growth. Now, it certainly helps to be the second largest network with just more than 118 million subscribers, but it's not making the company any new friends with their customers.

AT&T has gone so far as to offer promotions and then pull them shortly after, in what can only be interpreted as executive unrest and disagreement. Recently, it announced an offering of 15GB for $100 a month on a shared-data plan. This promotion was pulled after just two weeks and was never heard from again.

The other extreme of this, however, is equally concerning for investors and analysts. Sprint began to offer the "cut your bill in half" deal, which promised users that switched over from AT&T their same plan plus unlimited data for half the price of their current monthly bill. While this is certainly enticing to consumers, it is highly unsustainable. Sprint is in the process of actually losing subscribers year after year.

AT&T has lowered its expectations for the year, lowering its 2014 revenue forecasts from 5 percent to 3-4 percent. Time will tell if the other carriers will take full advantage of AT&T's lame duck scenario and have the financial back up to maintain their drastic discounts. Meanwhile, T-Mobile is running their "data-stash" plan and offering data rollover, an unprecedented advantage from the days of minute rollover.