AT&T announced Thursday that it plans to lay off 12,000 people and curb spending on new equipment  a sign that the telecommunications industry is beginning to feel the pain of the economic downturn.

AT&T had already been struggling with a decline in revenue from its traditional wireline phone service as customers continued to drop landlines. Rapid growth in wireless, television and high-speed Internet services more than offset that drop.

But analysts said Thursday that the recession is now clearly having an impact even on the fast-growing businesses.

“It’s clear that the economy, the macro environment, is affecting their business, particularly on the wireline side,” said John Hodulik, a telecommunications analyst at UBS Investment Research. “The company had more line losses than expected, slower broadband growth than they expected and less activity in the business market.”