AT&T is considering absorbing its two-year-old Latin American subsidiary and retiring the unit's publicly traded shares.

If the company proceeds with the proposal, it would be yet another case of a North American company's having stumbled with its investments in the Latin American telecommunications industry.

AT&T Latin America had hoped to benefit from telecommunications deregulation in the region. Those hopes died fast.

... AT&T Latin America is still losing money; ... the operation's big problem is its huge debt load; ...