AT&T sells towers; earnings down for Q4

AT&T unloaded 235 if its cell towers last week to Florida-based Global Tower Partners. [via]

Don't worry, Sunshine State. You're not going to lose your coverage anytime soon. It's not that uncommon a practice for a carrier to sell towers, then lease them back. We reported last summer that Sprint did the same thing, albeit in a much larger deal. In that sale, 3,300 towers were sold to TowerCo LLC for $670 million. So, towers don't come cheap.

And hot on the heels of the tower sale comes AT&T's fourth-qarter earnings report. [via] The bad news: earnings per share fell 10 cents compared to the fourth quarter of last year. The good news: The first three quarters of the year made up for that, with the full year EPS up from $1.97 to $2.16. And, yes, we have the iPhone 3G to thank for much of that.