AT&T

Far too many customers aren't paying their phone bills on time, if you ask the phone companies. Three of the top four submitters to third-party collection agencies are major telephone carriers. And the reasons why should come as no surprise.

Each January, 24/7 Wall St. makes its predictions about which publicly traded U.S. companies it feels will have the highest profits in the year ahead. Read on, and find out which of the Fortune 500 will rake in the biggest fortunes.

Millions of investors have discovered how profitable dividend stocks can be, and it's not hard to find great companies for your dividend portfolio. Here are the five Dow stocks that best combine high dividends with a consistent track record of gains.

Messing with TiVo's patents is a losing proposition for rival distributors of digital video recorders, as AT&T just became the most recent competitor to discover -- to the tune of at least $215 million.

A host of new products launched this year. So were big successes -- like the iPhone 4S and the Boeing Dreamliner 787. Other new offerings crashed and burned spectacularly. Here's 24/7 Wall St.'s look at the biggest duds of 2011.

It has been a horrible year for Research In Motion, and things may not be getting any better for the BlackBerry maker come 2012. Despite all of the buyout speculation, RIM's stock has been a disaster. In fact, it's a foregone conclusion that RIM is toast.

AT&T said Monday that it is ending its $39 billion bid to buy T-Mobile USA after facing fierce government objections. The cellphone giant said that the actions of the government to block the deal do not change the challenges of the wireless phone industry, which it says requires more airwaves, known as spectrum, to expand. The deal would have solved that problem for a time, and without it, "customers will be harmed and needed investment will be stifled," AT&T said in a statement.