at&t breaking up with Y! -- NOT

All the merging that at&t has done lately, but they are breaking up with Yahoo. Or so the rumors go. Rumors that are tanking Yahoo's stock price. This was the year that Embarq (formerly Sprint United Local) split with EarthLink as their ISP back-office.

"The Journal said Yahoo receives between $200 million and $250 million annually from its Internet partnership with AT&T, which expires in April 2008." [Forbes]

Yahoo needs the deal to keep its ad revenues up. It needs to be in front of the 12M at&t BB subs. And it would gain the old BellSouth region, which it didn't have yet.

In additional rumor news, Forbes says that Echostar will likely not be bought by at&t.

[March 14, 2007] update: at&t renewed its partnership with Yahoo. [Source]