Citizens Communications to Acquire Berkshire Telephone Corporation.

Business Editors

STAMFORD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 6, 2000

Citizens Communications (NYSE:CZN, CZNPr) and Berkshire Telephone Corporation (Berkshire) announced today that Citizens has agreed to acquire all of the assets of Berkshire. Berkshire serves more than 6,000 telephone access lines in five communities in Columbia County, New York: Kinderhook, Valatie, Niverville, Stuyvesant and Stuyvesant Falls. Berkshire also offers cable television, paging, Internet access and long-distance telephone services.

Citizens Communications, which serves approximately 1.2 million telephone access lines in 15 states, currently serves over 330,000 access lines in New York state. On July 12, 2000, Citizens announced its agreement to acquire Frontier Corporation's 1.1. million access lines from Global Crossing Ltd. (NASDAQ:GBLX). Upon completion of the Global Crossing and Berkshire agreements, Citizens will serve over 1 million access lines in New York.

The parties expect that the transaction, which requires the approval of the New York Public Service Commission, will be completed during 2001.

About Citizens Communications

Citizens Communications provides telecommunications services to approximately 1.2 million customers in 15 states. In 1999 and 2000, Citizens agreed to purchase over 2 million additional access lines in 19 states. Citizens also owns 85.66% of Electric Lightwave, Inc. (NASDAQ:ELIX), a facilities-based, integrated communications provider that offers a broad range of services to telecommunications-intensive businesses throughout the United States. More information about Citizens can be found at www.czn.net.

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