This Generous Dividend Is Calling You

Today is a different communications world, and AT&T is a different communications company. But it's still a pretty safe investment -- and a rewarding one: Its dividend gives a 5.6% yield. Paying dividends has been part of the AT&T culture since the company's inception in the 1880s. AT&T has continued paying a dividend since the 1984 breakup, and has had six consecutive years of dividend growth -- the last five years at an average 5.67%. The current payout ratio is a realistic 48%. The AT&T of today is also on the verge of becoming the largest American wireless carrier -- if its proposed acquisition of T-Mobile makes it past the government's antitrust and Federal Communications Commission oversight. If that does happen, AT&T will add 34 million more subscribers. Barring any divestitures in the merger process, that could leave the company with upward of 132 million wireless subscribers. That puts it considerably ahead of its biggest rival Verizon's (NYSE: VZ) 104 million subscribers. Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S) would then be an even more distant third, with approximately 51 million subscribers.... Read more