ATLANTA, /PRNewswire/ BellSouth (NYSE: BLS — News) With restoration and repair efforts well underway, BellSouth took additional steps today to help victims directly impacted by Hurricane Ivan, waiving charges for some services and for relocation costs.

«Many of our small business customers in Alabama have experienced significant damage to their business,» said David Scobey — president, BellSouth Small Business Services. «Small businesses are the heartbeat of the American economy. BellSouth wants to aid them every way we can. This disaster recovery plan will help our small business customers with damage that requires temporary locations or complete shutdowns stay running so that they can keep in touch with customers during this difficult time.»

The BellSouth Small Business Disaster Relief Effort includes the following for qualifying businesses’ service needs requested until October 8, 2004:

Service charges associated with providing dial tone phone service to a new or temporary location will be waived, as well as charges for a later move back to the original location.

One free month of the following services at the new location: Remote Call Forwarding, Call Forwarding Variable, Remote Access to Call Forwarding, Call Forwarding Don’t Answer, Call Forwarding Busy Line, Message Waiting Indication, Star98 Access and Voice Mail Companion Services Package. The service charge for these options will also be waived.
One free month of MemoryCall Service or BellSouth Voice Mail Service. — If the business is deemed to be no longer operational because of damage
from the disaster, and the business does not reopen or relocate,

BellSouth will waive the termination charges associated with the term

election agreement.

Customers desiring more information about these or other services or to
place an order should use the following numbers:
 — From a BellSouth phone — 1–866–620–6000
 — From wireless or non-BellSouth phone or outside of Alabama
1–800–919–2800.

Business owners who can identify possible service problems before calling the BellSouth number will aid in facilitating speed to resolve the issue. These problem isolation tips include:

Cordless phones will not work without commercial electrical power. Use a traditional corded telephone.
Dial tone is available on one of your phones but not all? Chances are the problem is in the phone itself. Unplug it from the network.
Noise or static on the line? Try disconnecting all of your telephones and related equipment (answering machines, computers, FAX, caller-ID devices, etc.). Wait at least one minute. Then, reconnect your phones one at a time to see if the trouble still exists. Check for dial tone as you plug in each one. If the problem stops, it is most likely associated with a specific phone or related equipment. If static returns once you have reconnected another device, the problem is most likely associated with that item or the cord attached to that equipment.
Can’t receive telephone calls even though you have dial tone? It is possible that Call forwarding has been activated on your telephone. Try dialing *73 (or 1173 from a rotary dial telephone) to disable this feature.
Customers wishing to call BellSouth for repair service may use the
following numbers.
 — From a BellSouth phone — dial 1–866–620–6900
 — From wireless or non-BellSouth phone or outside of Alabama — dial
1–800–252–0803

With more hurricane activity possible in the coming weeks, BellSouth Small Business Services also recommends consideration of the following communication options to aid small businesses in their quest to stay connected with their customers.

BellSouth services that may be helpful during the hurricane include:

Remote Access to Call Forwarding, allows customers to activate or deactivate Call Forwarding from any telephone equipped with touch tone.
Call Forwarding Don’t Answer, automatically routes calls that are not answered within a designated number of rings to another pre-selected telephone number.
Call Forwarding Busy Line service, automatically routes calls to another pre-selected telephone number when the line is busy. Instead of the caller getting a busy signal, the call is routed to the secondary number.
Memory Call(SM) answering service, provides for your calls to be answered and allows the caller to leave a message when you are unable to answer. You can retrieve messages from any touch tone telephone.
BellSouth’s CrisisLink(SM) service for businesses, which requires a seven-day installation process, can designate alternate routing of voice, data and video communications in the event normal business operations at the usual locations are interrupted. For example, if a major storm causes authorities to evacuate a community where a business is located, a pre-established CrisisLink plan would allow the business to reroute calls to another location.
About BellSouth Corporation

BellSouth Corporation is a Fortune 100 communications company headquartered in Atlanta, Ga., and a parent company of Cingular Wireless, the nation’s second largest wireless voice and data provider.

Backed by award winning customer service, BellSouth offers the most comprehensive and innovative package of voice and data services available in the market. Through BellSouth Answers(SM), residential and small business customers can bundle their local and long distance service with dial up and high speed DSL Internet access, satellite television and Cingular® Wireless service. For businesses, BellSouth provides secure, reliable local and long distance voice and data networking solutions. BellSouth also offers online and directory advertising through BellSouth® RealPages.com® and The Real Yellow Pages®.

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