BST 3Q05

Here are the highlights of BellSouth's 3rd quarter report:

1. "Excluding one-time items, BellSouth said its profit declined 5 percent from a year earlier, due to lower revenues from its wireline business and financing costs for its Cingular Wireless joint venture."
2. "BellSouth said it earned $817 million, or 44 cents per share, compared with $799 million, or 44 cents per share, in the same period a year earlier. The results included $200 million in costs from Hurricane Katrina, which hit BellSouth's network in Louisiana and Mississippi, as well as a $228 million gain from the sale of its stake in Cellcom, an Israeli mobile telephone company."
3. "BellSouth added 205,000 high-speed Internet customers during the quarter, and reiterated that it would launch a six-megabit service in a few markets in the fourth quarter."