NEW YORK (Standard&Poor's) March 24, 2008--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that its ratings and outlook for diversified telecommunications carriers Verizon Communications Inc. (A/Stable/A-1) and AT&T Inc. (A/Stable/A-1) are not affected by their winning bids in the FCC's recent 700 MHz wireless spectrum auction. The cash requirements for this spectrum are $9.4 billion for Verizon and $6.6 billion for AT&T. We expect these requirements to be funded for Verizon through a combination of cash on hand, cash flow, additional debt and proceeds from a pending transaction with FairPoint Communications Inc. For AT&T these requirements will be funded primarily with cash on hand, cash flow and additional debt. In both cases, debt to EBITDA is expected to modestly
