AT&T cutbacks lead to mobility gains

The layoffs that AT&T announced last week, which look to put 1.5 percent of its employees out of work, will be recouped over the course of the year by hiring employees for its mobility division, the carrier said. Most of the expected 4,600 cuts will come from the company's landline division. Since the cuts will mostly be from the management level and the new employees on the mobility side of things won't be from the management level, analysts expect cost savings from the layoffs to approach half a billion dollars.

AT&T also announced today that it had completed the acquisition of a regional wireless service provider Edge Wireless, which served subscribers in Oregon, northern California, Idaho and Wyoming. The FCC just announced its approval for the acquisition. The newly acquired Edge subscribers now have access to AT&T's full portfolio of services. Edge and AT&T have long had a roaming agreement.

For more on AT&T's recent news:
- read this AT&T cutbacks article from the WSJ (sub. req.)
- check out this AT&T completes Edge acquisition article

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