¡¡NEW YORK, March 5 (Xinhuanet) -- AT&T Inc., the largest U.S. telephone company, said Sunday it will buy BellSouth Corp. for 67 billion dollars in stock, to fully control Cingular Wireless LLC, the No. 1 U.S. wireless telephone company.

    The deal would be the biggest in the global telecommunications industry since Bell Atlantic Corp. in June 2000 bought GTE Corp. for 71 billion dollars, creating Verizon, according to Bloomberg data.

    BellSouth shareholders will receive 1.325 shares of AT&T commonstock for each common share of BellSouth. Based on AT&T's closing stock price on March 3, that equals 37.09 dollars per BellSouth common share, a 17.9-percent premium.

    Shares of AT&T fell 29 cents to 27.99 dollars in New York StockExchange composite trading on March 3 and have risen 14 percent this year. BellSouth fell 42 cents to 31.46 dollars and have risen16 percent this year.

    After the acquisition, AT&T and BellSouth would have a nationallong-distance telephone and data network, residential customers stretching from Florida to California and business customers.

    AT&T, based in San Antonio, owns 60 percent of Cingular Wireless LLC, the nation's No. 1 mobile-phone services company by subscribers. Atlanta-based BellSouth owns 40 percent. At the completion of the deal, which is expected to close within a year, all the landline and wireless businesses will exist under the solebrand name of AT&T. Enditem