By Johna Till Johnson and Johna Till Johnson, Network World, 07/25/05

It's been an eventful year: Last December, Sprint and Nextel announced plans to join forces in a deal expected to close this fall. After a nasty bidding war with Qwest, Verizon announced its intention to purchase MCI for $8.4 billion this spring. And at press time, approval was pending from AT&T's board to sell the firm to SBC for $16 billion in a deal expected to close next spring.

But in the recent round of telecom musical chairs, one name is notably absent: BellSouth . Despite a market capitalization of just less than $50 billion, serving upwards of 20 million business and residential customers in its southeastern region, and owning 40% of Cingular, the second-largest wireless provider, BellSouth seems to have stayed notably behind the scenes in recent years. (SBC owns the other 60% of Cingular, more about which in a minute.)