No-contract provider MetroPCS Communications ended the fourth quarter with more than 8.1 million subscribers, including net additions of 298,000.

Churn for the fourth quarter was 3.5 percent compared with 5.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009. The company attributes the improvement in churn primarily to continued acceptance of its Wireless for All service plans, which it launched about  a year ago to encompass taxes and regulatory fees into the base plan rate.

“We are pleased with our fourth quarter net subscriber additions and churn results, particularly in light of the severe weather occurring during our peak selling season in late December,” said Roger Linquist, MetroPCS chairman, president and CEO, in a press release.  

Even though it sounds like MetroPCS weathered the storm fairly well, its shares were down more than 7 percent at one point this morning, trading at $13.13. That may be because in the fourth quarter of 2009, the carrier added 317,255 net subs.

Shares in rival prepaid carrier Leap Wireless International were trading down more than 1 percent this morning, at $14.08. On Tuesday, the carrier reported that it had reversed its customer losses in the fourth quarter, gaining 162,000 net voice customer additions but losing about 48,000 net broadband customers. Leap ended the year with about 5.53 million customers.

On Monday, MetroPCS announced its new LTE no-contract plans starting at $40 a month.