SBC AT&T Inc.

Cingular Wireless Statement Concerning Southern California Fires (As of 5:45 p.m. PST) LOS ANGELES, Oct. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Cingular Wireless joins millions in expressing sympathy to everyone impacted by the recent fires in Southern California. Cingular's top concern is ensuring that its customers in these regions have continued wireless service to keep them informed, safe and in touch with family, friends and colleagues. Although the fires have affected certain cell sites in the Los Angeles and San Diego areas, Cingular's number-one priority has been to restore these sites to full capacity as quickly and safely as possible. Only 5% of Cingular's sites in San Diego and 1% in the Los Angeles area were impacted by these fires. Service restoration efforts have already brought on-line nearly 50% of those impacted cell sites. The company expects to make additional sites operational by the end of the day. Those sites that have not been restored are in areas currently inaccessible due to safety concerns. Cingular suggests that customers limit calls to emergency/family contacts during these busy cell phone usage times. In addition, we recommend sending SMS messages as another method of communicating to family members. This will help free up the network, so that emergency personnel and 911 users can communicate without delay. Cingular is deploying back-up generators to augment commercial power losses at cell sites, and the company has mobile wireless facilities called "cellular on wheels" or "COWs" to deploy if needed. Employees are monitoring the network round-the-clock. In addition, Cingular is working to donate approximately 1,100 phones to the evacuation centers and the American Red Cross chapters in the fire-affected regions. ABOUT CINGULAR WIRELESS Cingular Wireless, a joint venture between SBC Communications (NYSE:SBC) and BellSouth (NYSE:BLS), serves more than 24 million voice and data customers across the United States. A leader in mobile voice and data communications, Cingular is the only U.S. wireless carrier to offer Rollover(SM), the wireless plan that lets customers keep their unused monthly minutes. Cingular has launched the world's first commercial deployment of wireless services using Enhanced Data for Global Evolution (EDGE) technology. Cingular provides cellular/PCS service in 43 of the top 50 markets nationwide, and provides corporate e-mail and other advanced data services through its GPRS, EDGE and Mobitex packet data networks. Details of the company are available at < http://www.cingular.com/ >. DATASOURCE: Cingular Wireless CONTACT: Lauren Garner of Cingular Wireless, +1-925-819-5362, ; or Richard Gomes, +1-310-584-8349, , for Cingular Wireless Web site: http://www.cingular.com/

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