Verizon Communications today reported its fourth quarter earnings, living up to most Wall Street forecasts with net earnings of $3.04 billion and a 6% revenue gain buoyed by the company’s thriving wireless business.

In turning the $3 billion profit (or $1.08 per share), Verizon reversed Q4 2003 losses of $1.5 billion, or 53 cents a share. Excluding one-time items, earnings increased to $1.8 billion, or 64 cents a share, from $1.6 billion/58 cents a share a year earlier.

Verizon Wireless alone was responsible for more than 40% of the company’s overall revenues, up from 35% a year ago. The mobile unit’s $7.34 billion revenue total marked a 22.7% increase from Q4 2003, while average revenue per user rose to $50.32 per month.

Verizon Wireless also added 1.7 million net new customers during the quarter, bringing its overall subscriber total to 43.8 million. Customer churn fell to 1.43%.

The gains made by Verizon’s wireless arm offset losses suffered by its wireline business, which dipped 2.4% to $9.7 billion. Line losses of nearly 700,000 were also balanced by the growth of Verizon's DSL business, which added more than 300,000 subscribers during the quarter for a total of 3.56 million.