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The Dallas, Texas-based company said its new "Rethink Possible" ad campaign, which debuted last week, attempts to revamp its brand and image to promote itself as a company that offers services beyond being a wireless carrier, touting visions for untethered Internet access.

"There's so much innovation happening at the company that I think people don't know," said Esther Lee, AT&T's senior vice president for brand marketing and advertising. "We spend an average $18 billion to $19 billion a year on our network, our technology and our inventions in order to drive the future of how people are going to live on our network."

The shift in strategy marks the end of a bruising advertising war with Verizon over network coverage.

Verizon hit first with its "There's a Map for That" commercials that slammed AT&T for its spotty third-generation coverage. In response, AT&T launched its own ad campaign with actor Luke Wilson claiming that it had "the nation's fastest 3G network."

Both companies had spent hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising, increasing the tension and rivalry between the wireless providers, even prompting lawsuits that accused each other of lying in ads.

Analysts say it's difficult to determine which company won the ad wars, because neither drew many subscribers from the other. Instead, smaller carriers, including Sprint and T-Mobile, got caught in the crossfire.

Verizon, the largest U.S. carrier, added 2.2 million subscribers to end the year with 91.2 million customers. AT&T, the second biggest, added 2.7 million subscribers to finish with 85.1 million.

But the battles between the two companies are still ongoing. Both have been racing to beef up their networks for another looming battle over fourth-generation technology.

AT&T is spending $2 billion on roll-outs -- adding new radio boxes, building more cell towers and putting up new sites in high-density areas like transportation hubs -- for twice as much capacity as it had last year.

Meanwhile, Verizon is rushing to build-out its next-generation network for a commercial launch later this year, and its first 4G handset by mid-2011.

More recently, Apple announced that it is developing two new iPhones, one for AT&T and another for Verizon, both to launch this summer.