The credit crunch is making life tough for the world's largest telecommunications company, AT&T.

Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson said that his company was unable to sell any commercial paper last week for terms longer than overnight. Commercial paper is a short-term IOU available to corporations that banks usually know are good for the money.

While it does not cost AT&T much, there are a shortage of people willing to give AT&T any money. AT&T is paying for some expensive acquisitions of wireless spectrum this year. It had winning bids worth $6.6 billion in the latest auction by the Federal Communications Commission. It had $1.6 billion in cash at the end of June, so it's good for the payments.

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