NEW YORK (Standard&Poor's) March 6, 2006--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that its ratings for AT&T Inc. (A/Watch Neg/A-1), BellSouth Corp. (A/Watch Neg/A-1), and Cingular Wireless LLC (A/Watch Neg/--) remain on CreditWatch with negative implications following the merger agreement announced by AT&T Inc. and BellSouth Corp. Pro forma for the merger and including Cingular Wireless, which is jointly owned by AT&T and BellSouth, the combined company had about $62 billion in total debt outstanding as of Dec. 31, 2005, including $15 billion of debt at Cingular. "The ratings for AT&T and BellSouth were placed on CreditWatch with negative implications on Jan. 13, 2006; this action reflected our view that there is a higher level of uncertainty about
