In addition to this decline in new business development since the recession, the below-parity performance by African American-owned businesses presents a significant lost opportunity for job creation. Had minority businesses reached parity with other businesses, the economy would have created $2.5 trillion in additional economic activity and 16.1 million additional jobs.

–up 25.12% from $50.14 billion for 2010.

Reported roaming revenues for the last six months of 2011 were $1.75 billion, up 6.4% from $1.64 billion as of December 2010, and up 11.6% from $1.57 billion as of June 2011.

The rapid transition from 3G to 4G mobile broadband networks should continue to stimulate new job creation in a short time frame, generating more than 231,000 jobs for every 10 percentage point gain in penetration rates within a year.

Past experience suggests that the shift to 4G wireless infrastructure will also open the door to a wide range of new applications, products, services, and even industries that no one can anticipate in advance. These developments almost certainly will produce economic gains at least comparable to those generated by the previous build-out and adoption of 3G technologies and related devices in America.

The adoption of cell phones and other mobile devices supported by a shift from 2G to 3G Internet and wireless network technologies led to the creation of nearly 1.6 million new jobs across the United States, between April 2007 and June 2011 – even as total private sector employment fell by nearly 5.3 million positions.

On October 7, 2011 Sprint announced a new strategic Network Vision that analysts say will require billions in capital expenditures over the next two years. All three major credit-ratings firms have either cut or put the company on watch for a downgrade saying plans to sell the iPhone and accelerate its network upgrade could hurt profits and key credit measures.

The AT&T-T-Mobile merger will create and retain jobs, and expand high-speed 4G LTE wireless services to an additional 55 million people, improving quality of service, and commitments by AT&T to retain existing T-Mobile rate plans and to divest portions of the network to maintain competition in specific markets. According to the Economic Policy Institute, each $1 billion in capital expenditure on wireless infrastructure can create up to 12,000 new jobs a year as a result of network expansion.  EPI estimates that an $8 billion investment that AT&T has committed to spending over seven years will create between 54,834 and 95,959 jobs for the seven-year program.