(AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)

This Android phone is finally coming to the States.

AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, U.S. Cellular, Cricket, and C Spire have announced that they will have the Samsung Galaxy S 4 this month. AT&T is already taking pre-orders, according to Mashable, with a ship date scheduled for April 30.

Sprint and T-Mobile will be offering the phone for $150 and will have the phone a little bit earlier, the 27th and the 24th, respectively. Best Buy, Costco, Radio Shack, and other retailers will have the phone soon as well.

Mashable calls it “one of the most powerful smartphones around.” I’m actually in the market for a new phone (replacing a BlackBerry), so this is something to consider. Any advice or suggestions out there?

AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Nathan Denette

Sales of the new BlackBerry Z10 weren’t exactly stellar this past weekend, the first three days that the new device was available to AT&T subscribers. But the lack of people lined up at stores didn’t tell the whole story, according to FierceWireless.

The website says that 10 days of pre-sales, BlackBerry’s emphasis on enterprise users, and the coming sales of the device at other carriers, including T-Mobile, could be contributing to the slow start.

Moreover, experts that spoke with the site say that BlackBerry, which popular abroad, is facing overwhelming competition here from Apple and Samsung.

The lackluster start drove down BlackBerry’s stock by about eight percent on Friday and Forbes says it doesn’t look like it’s going to get much better. Goldman Sachs has also downgraded the stock.

Part of the problem is very likely the marketing. We’ve seen promoted Tweets, but other areas seem to be lacking. We asked on Friday about Alicia Keys’ disappearance. One of our Twitter followers, @AlexsisRenee, noted that she’s only see one commercial. And then our writer Ann Brown noted this story from NJ.com talking about a kick-off event with Ludacris and Janelle Monae in Times Square over the weekend. How come we didn’t hear about this? Did anyone?

Sales at Verizon start today.

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It’s not just your smartphone that’s getting the 4G treatment. AT&T and General Motors have partnered to bring 4G Wifi to cars starting 2014.

Car owners will have to choose a package in the available vehicle models. The Wall Street Journal says the 4G will be available in the GMC, Vauxhall, Cadillac, Buick, and Chevrolet models. Among the offerings will be info and displays about traffic jams, for example. It also opens the door to other options such as pulling data from The Weather Channel right to your car. And apps like Netflix could be coming to GM’s cars. (For the backseat, according to The Washington Post.) The goal is to also bring voice-activated apps to cars, to lower the number of distractions that divers experience behind the wheel.

GM already made some digital services, like directions, available through its OnStar service. The Journal points out that GM isn’t inventing the wheel on this. Other car companies, like BMW and Ford, have introduced hi-tech options to their vehicles, but GM hasn’t taken its OnStar option to the next level.

Would 4G availability make GM vehicles more appealing to you?

via Twitter

For the fifth year, AT&T is celebrating with 28 Days, a campaign that aims to motivate consumers to be inspired by Black History Month, reports Target Market News. The 28 Days campaign includes a multi-city speaker series and concert tour with comedian and radio personality Rickey Smiley as host.

“AT&T 28 Days is five years strong because of the response and support we’ve received from our African American consumers,” said Jennifer Jones, vice president of Diverse Markets, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets in a press statement.

“I feel honored to be involved with 28 Days because it gives me the opportunity to speak candidly about the importance of our history and share the stage with other individuals who are taking that forward look at making history,” said Smiley.

The 2013 speaker series and concert tour will feature some of today’s African-American leaders and trendsetters, such as Corvida Raven, tech guru, blogger and entrepreneur;  MC Lyte, hip-hop icon and pioneer female lyricist; and Jeff Johnson, social activist and political commentator. There will also be musical performances from R&B artist Elle Varner.

AT&T 28 Days started in Washington, D.C. at the Lincoln Theatre on February 7 with keynote speaker, hip-hop commentator, activist and author Kevin Powell. The speaker series events are free and open to the general public and tickets online on a first come first serve basis.

The campaign this year also includes a photo sharing contest, Inspire, that allows consumers to submit and share photos of their inspirational moments. The grand prize is $1,000 to purchase tickets to any Live Nation concert in the U.S. taking place in 2013, and $1,000 cash. Contest rules can be found on the website.

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Looking for a job like the 12.1 million other Americans who are unemployed? Using data from job search engine Simply Hired, Forbes has compiled a list of the companies that are currently hiring the most. So dust off that resume and go for it. Here are the top five places, ranked by the most job openings.

1)      AT&T:  35,479 job openings. The telecommunications giant is looking to fill retail positions, sales spots, and management jobs, among others.

2)      Family Dollar Stores: 23,769 listings. The price-point retail chain is looking for store managers, customer service representatives, human resources coordinators, and more.

3)      Toys “R” Us: 17,073 new slots. Like the other retailers, Toys “R” Us is bringing on thousands of part-time seasonal workers right now.

4)      Kindred Healthcare: 14,233 job openings. All are full-time positions.

5)      Best Buy: 13,979 postings. About half of these openings are for part-time, seasonal, contract or temporary positions.

(Wall Street Journal) — The Justice Department on Wednesday sued to block AT&T Inc.’s proposed $39 billion takeover of T-Mobile USA, a surprisingly swift move that dealt a blow to AT&T’s ambition to build the largest U.S. cellphone carrier.  The government said the combination of the second- and fourth-largest cellphone companies in the U.S. would harm competition and likely raise prices for consumers.  The antitrust challenge came just five months after the deal was announced, catching AT&T off guard. The Dallas-based communications giant vowed to fight to preserve its prize deal, setting up one of the most significant antitrust court battles in recent years.  The lawsuit is the Obama administration’s boldest antitrust challenge to date and the latest evidence of its intention to reinvigorate enforcement after what it says was a lull during the previous administration.

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(Bloomberg) – AT&T Inc. (T), seeking government approval for its $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA Inc., pledged to bring 5,000 call-center jobs back to the U.S. from other countries once the deal closes.  The company, which would become the nation’s biggest mobile-phone carrier after the acquisition, said today in a statement that it wouldn’t cut any U.S. wireless call-center jobs as a result of the purchase. The jobs plan doesn’t change Dallas-based AT&T’s forecasts for savings from the deal, it said.  “At a time when many Americans are struggling and our economy faces significant challenges, we’re pleased that the T- Mobile merger allows us to bring 5,000 jobs back to the United Statesand significantly increase our investment here,” AT&T Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Randall Stephenson said in the statement.

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By J. Smith

Activist organization ColorOfChange.org has launched a new campaign against the AT&T/ T-Mobile merger, calling on the FCC to block the deal. In a thorough report of the attempted deal, Color of Change says “AT&T wants to buy T-Mobile – and it could have huge, negative consequences, especially for Black Americans.” They drew up a report outlining the potentially harmful economic effects the merger could have and question the major civil rights groups that have come out in support of the merger.

“The deal is likely to destroy jobs, raise the price of cellular service and threaten net neutrality for wireless high-speed internet,” the report claims. Net neutrality essentially prevents large corporations from marginalizing smaller companies that threaten their profits or promote an opinion that is dissenting from the popular one. “Protecting net neutrality for wireless broadband in increasingly important as more and more people use their phones to access the internet, especially African Americans,” the report claims.

Color of Change’s study says that combining the two companies would effectively get rid of the competition, causing a snowball of other problems to gather, and that false and deceptive arguments have been used to support the merger. Read them here. But what is most troubling is the light the report shines on civil rights groups who have come out as strong supporters of the corporate giant after years of donations from the very groups in question.

“In order to shift focus away from the facts regarding the serious impact on the deal on marginalized communities, AT&T is trying to show the FC that civil rights groups support the merger,” the report said. And indeed, groups like the NAACP, National Action Network and the National Urban League have lent their support to the company’s cause. “Many of these groups have very close, long-standing relationships with AT&T, and have received significant financial support from the company.”

Those groups have the right to support whichever cause they’d like, but not if it works against the best interest of the groups they are charged with representing.

(Chicago Sun Times) — What do the Congressional Black Caucus and AT&T have in common? And I don’t mean Common, Chicago’s hometown rapper. They share an “interest” in expanding broadband access and diminishing the nation’s digital divide.  Last week, AT&T and T-Mobile announced a proposed $39 billion merger that would create a telecommunications company with nearly 130 million subscribers. If the new combine passes muster with federal regulators, it will become the nation’s No. 1 service provider.  No! howled Free Press, a non-profit that lobbies for a more democratic media. The group argues that the merger would erode competition, punish consumers and kill jobs. Yes! cheered the Wall Street Journal, claiming the deal would inspire innovation and fertilize America’s communications landscape with an explosion of new options.  Is it a devil of a deal, or a deal with the devil? Either way, if the omnivorous AT&T wants to gobble up T-Mobile, it should include a little healthy altruism in its diet. Universal and cheap broadband would help.

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(New York Times) — AT&T announced on Sunday that it had agreed to buy T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom for $39 billion, in a deal that would create the largest wireless carrier in the nation and promised to reshape the industry.  The transaction, one of the largest since the onset of the financial crisis, is expected to start a fierce battle in Washington as regulators scrutinize the effect of the deal on competition and consumers. The deal would leave just three major cellular companies in the country: AT&T, Verizon and the much smaller Sprint Nextel.

Some critics denounced the merger within hours of its announcement, saying it would most likely lead to higher prices. T-Mobile had offered some of the lowest rates in the country, keeping pressure on competitors. While AT&T is expected to honor current contracts, T-Mobile customers may have to pay higher rates once those contracts expire.  Still, AT&T pointed on Sunday to a recent report from the federal Government Accountability Office that said cellular subscription costs fell 50 percent from 1999 and 2009, a period in which the industry has consolidated.

“Consumers have borne the brunt of the increasingly concentrated market for mobile phone service,” Senator Herb Kohl, the Wisconsin Democrat who heads the subcommittee on antitrust, competition policy and consumers rights, said in a statement. “The explosion of cellphone usage — especially smartphones — makes competition in this market more important than ever as a check on prices, consumer choice and service.”

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