WASHINGTON — AT&T said it would take a $4 billion charge in case its takeover of T-Mobile USA fails, reflecting the dwindling chances for the deal seen as job-destroying by powerful political opponents.

The telecommunications group and T-Mobile owner Deutsche Telekom, said they would continue to pursue anti-trust approval for the $39 billion takeover from the U.S. Department of Justice, but withdrew for now applications to the industry regulator.

“AT&T Inc and Deutsche Telekom AG are continuing to pursue the sale of Deutsche Telekom’s U.S. wireless assets to AT&T,” they said in a statement on Thursday, the Thanksgiving Day holiday in the United States.

AT&T declined to comment on the timing of the announcement beyond the statement.

Both the DOJ and telecoms watchdog the Federal Communications Commission oppose the deal, which would reduce the number of national mobile carriers to three while consumers are struggling to make ends meet and unemployment rises.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — BlackBerry maker Research In Motion believes its white knight is coming. But while it waits, the company is drastically lowering its financial outlook and handing out pink slips.

Very disappointing sales of BlackBerry smartphones and tablets during the last quarter led RIM to cut its full-year profit expectations by 30%. The Waterloo, Ontario-based company also announced that it will begin a program to “streamline operations,” which will include layoffs.

RICHMOND, Va. — What’s black and white and read all over? Not the white pages, which is why regulators have begun granting telecommunications companies the go-ahead to stop mass-printing residential phone books, a musty fixture of Americans’ kitchen counters, refrigerator tops and junk drawers.

In the past month alone, New York, Florida and Pennsylvania approved Verizon Communications Inc.’s request to quit distributing residential white pages. Residents in Virginia have until Nov. 19 to provide comments on a similar request pending with state regulators.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — PayPal’s online payment service is ramping up its focus on smartphones.

Right now, it’s tough for mom-and-pop outfits to easily accept mobile payments. PayPal hopes to bridge that gap with a new project called “Titanium+Commerce,” announced Tuesday at a company conference.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Watch out AT&T, Sprint and Verizon: A whole host of super-fast wireless services could be coming down the pike.

LightSquared, a new 4G wireless network backed by private-equity firm Harbinger Capital Partners and to be built by Nokia Siemens, is set to roll out starting next year. By 2015, LightSquared intends to have its network covering 92% of the U.S. population, the company announced this week.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Mobile phone companies have been lauded for slashing the cost of unlimited voice plans, but many wireless customers’ monthly bills are actually going to get a bit more expensive.

Last month, both Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500) and AT&T (T, Fortune 500) lowered their unlimited voice plans by $30 to $70 per month. Sprint (S, Fortune 500) recently unveiled a plan that allows unlimited calls to any mobile device for $60 per month.

WASHINGTON – Ever make a personal call on your company cell phone? Did you record the value of that call as taxable income, as required by law?

Join the club, but don’t worry. President Barack Obama will propose repealing the widely ignored requirement as part of his 2011 budget plan, a Treasury Department official said Saturday.

The administration made a similar proposal in June, and it was well received in Congress. Lawmakers, however, became preoccupied by the health care debate for much of the year and a lot of their work on tax law was delayed.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — State laws that ban drivers from talking on hand-held cell phones seem to have no effect on crash rates, according to a study released Friday.

The Highway Loss Data Institute compared collisions of 100 insured vehicles per year in four different jurisdictions before and after bans on handheld cell phone use took effect. The study was done in New York, Washington, D.C., Connecticut and California.

Verizon cut its unlimited family talk and text plan from $229.99 to $149.99 and its nationwide unlimited voice plan was reduced to $69.99 from $99.99.

An unlimited family voice plan will cost users $119.99, down from $199.99, and nationwide unlimited talk and text plans were lowered to $89.99 from $119.99.

When disaster strikes, many people’s first instinct is to reach for the phone.

When the earthquake struck Haiti on Tuesday, Trilogy International Partners’ first instinct was to make sure the phones would start working again.

The Bellevue, Wash., company owns Voila, the second-largest cell phone operator in Haiti. The company, which has about 1 million subscribers in Haiti, dispatched planes as soon as possible to the island nation and was one of the first to land at the airport.

NEW YORK – What would the holidays be without bickering between siblings? AT&T and Verizon are swamping TV with ads attacking facets of each other’s wireless networks. While the ads stick fairly close to the truth, there’s a lot they don’t say.

AT&T Inc. has been running ads with actor Luke Wilson checking off points in AT&T’s favor over Verizon Wireless. It’s the continuation of a spat that started a month ago, when Verizon started airing cheeky commercials that highlighted how its fast, third-generation (“3G”) network has wider coverage than AT&T’s 3G system.

Broadpoint AmTech’s Brian Marshall, who has replaced Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster as the most bullish of the mainstream Apple analysts, made several assertions of fact in an Bloomberg TV interview Friday that — if true — struck me as newsworthy. Chief among them:

* The contract that gives AT&T (T) exclusive access in the U.S. to Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone expires in June 2010.
* Apple is now getting a $450 subsidy from AT&T for each iPhone it sells; after June, that subsidy will be reduced to $300 for all carriers, domestic and international.
* The 4% of AT&T subscribers who use the iPhone consume roughly 40% of the network’s bandwidth.