Dividend Declaration

Bellsouth Corp
23 February 2004

Media Contacts

LeAnn Hansen

BellSouth

404-249-2839

                     BellSouth Board of Directors declares

                            81st quarterly dividend

For immediate release:

February 23, 2004

Atlanta, GA - The board of directors of BellSouth Corporation (NYSE: BLS) today
declared a regular quarterly dividend of 25 cents per common share. The
first-quarter dividend is payable May 3, 2004 to shareholders of record as of
the close of business on April 8, 2004.

BellSouth has nearly 1.9 billion shares outstanding in approximately 700,000
registered shareholder accounts. This is the 81st consecutive quarterly dividend
declared by BellSouth.

About BellSouth Corporation

BellSouth Corporation is a Fortune 100 communications services company
headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. BellSouth serves nearly 50 million local,
long distance, Internet and wireless customers in the United States and 12 other
countries.

Consistently recognized for customer satisfaction, BellSouth provides complete
communications solutions to the residential and business markets. In the
residential market, BellSouth offers DSL high-speed Internet access and long
distance, advanced voice features and other services. The company's BellSouth
AnswersSM package combines local and long distance service with an array of
calling features; wireless data, voice and e-mail services; and high-speed DSL
or dial-up Internet service and Cingular Wireless. In the business market,
BellSouth serves small, medium and large businesses providing secure, reliable
local and long distance voice and data networking solutions. BellSouth also
provides online and directory advertising services through BellSouth(R)
RealPages.comSM and The Real Yellow Pages(R).

BellSouth owns 40 percent of Cingular Wireless, the nation's second largest
wireless company, which provides innovative wireless voice and data services.


                      This information is provided by RNS
            The company news service from the London Stock Exchange