NEW YORK (Standard&Poor's) Jan. 2, 2007--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that it affirmed its ratings on regional Bell operating companies AT&T Inc. (A/Negative/A-1), BellSouth Corp. (A/Negative/A-1), and the combined company's wholly owned wireless communications company, Cingular Wireless LLC (A/Negative/--), including the 'A' corporate credit ratings on the companies. At the same time, we removed all the ratings for the three companies from CreditWatch. These actions followed the Dec. 29, 2006, closing of AT&T's acquisition of BellSouth. The outlooks are negative. On a pro forma basis, the new AT&T, including Cingular Wireless, had about $63 billion of debt reported as of Sept. 30, 2006. Standard&Poor's had earlier indicated its intention to affirm all ratings if
