Amazon Kindle 3G coming to AT&T stores on March 6

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AT&T will begin selling Amazon’s Kindle 3G on Sunday as it looks toward other gadgets to increase its customer base outside of cellphones.

The Kindle 3G will sell for $189 at AT&T’s retail stores, the same price Amazon sells the e-reader for online. Amazon has said that the Kindle is the most popular item sold on its gigantic retail website -- though the company has never said exactly how many it has sold.

AT&T will not sell Amazon’s Wi-Fi-only version of the Kindle because, unlike the Kindle 3G, it doesn’t utilize AT&T’s wireless network.

For every Kindle 3G sold by both Amazon and AT&T, the wireless carrier gains a new 3G user. Amazon pays AT&T about $3 or $4 a month to provide 3G service to every Kindle 3G at no monthly cost to the consumer, according to a Bloomberg report.

The Kindle is the first e-reader-only device AT&T will sell in its more than 2,000 U.S. stores, sitting along other non-phone items such as the Apple iPad, Dell Streak 5 and Samsung Galaxy Tab tablet computers.

‘Amazon has without question pioneered the eReader space with Kindle, and it’s exciting to not only connect this device through our network, but now offer it in our stores to readers around the country,’ Glenn Lurie, AT&T’s president of emerging devices, said in a statement.

The Kindle 3G also can connect to the Internet via Wi-Fi when available. Wireless Web connections are used to buy and download books from Amazon that can be then read on the Kindle’s e-Ink display.

AT&T also provides 3G service to Barnes & Noble’s Nook and Sony’s Reader line.

Apple is hosting an iPad-related event on Wednesday in San Francisco that is widely expected to be the unveiling of the iPad 2. Like the original iPad, AT&T is expected to sell the iPad 2 and offer a 3G wireless plan for the device as well.

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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles