Madison River Communications

Local Companies. Global Connectivity.

For Immediate Release: October 3, 2000
Mebane, North Carolina
MADISON RIVER COMMUNICATIONS ANNOUNCES COMPLETION AND LIGHTING OF GULF COAST FIBER ROUTE
Contact: Paul Sunu, Chief Financial Officer at (919) 563-8222 or Kevin Hancock, Marketing Manager at (919) 563-8227

Madison River Communications, an established and rapidly growing Integrated Communications Provider, announced that as of 2:00 AM CDT, on October 1, 2000 they completed and lit the entire 2163-mile fiber network running along the Gulf Coast. The fiber route runs from Dallas, Texas; through Houston, Texas; New Orleans, Louisiana; Mobile, Alabama; Pensacola, Florida; and terminates in Atlanta, Georgia. The hyper dense wave division multiplexing (HDWDM) system is capable of providing sixteen OC-48 channels per fiber pair. Madison River will install a robust ATM platform along the fiber route by years end. Madison River is already providing point-to-point services along the network.

"Our strategy is to expand our Integrated Communications services into Markets that are near our established Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier operations, or our points-of-presence on our fiber transport network," said Steve Vanderwoude, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer for Madison River Communications. " In lighting the network end-to-end we have passed a critical milestone in our plan to offer high-speed, quality-of-services (QoS) managed Internet access on our own network. We are now able to enter our target markets earlier than originally planned, and to do so capital efficiently."

Madison River also recently announced an agreement with MCI/WorldCom to interconnect with other Tier 1 Internet carriers in Dallas and Atlanta. Multi-homed in two major Network Access Points, MAE Central and Atlanta NAP, Madison River will offer its Internet customers a fully meshed OC-48 (5.0 gigabyte) Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) network architecture. The two network access points also enhance the reliability and flexibility of Madison River's self-healing, HDWDM SONET network that encompasses the Southeastern US.

Founded in 1996, Madison River has experienced dramatic and sustained growth since its inception. As of July 31, 2000, Madison River's access lines total is now over 201,000. Madison River provides long distance services to over 56,000 customers and Internet access service to over 29,000 customers.

The statements, other than statements of historical fact, included in this press release are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements generally can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as ''may,'' ''will,'' ''expect,'' ''intend,'' ''estimate,'' ''anticipate,'' ''plan,'' ''seek'' or ''believe.'' We believe that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are accurate. However, we cannot assure you that such expectations will occur. Our actual future performance could differ materially from such statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, the following:

· the uncertainties and potential delays associated with integrating the operations of Gulf Coast Services and Coastal Communications;

·the uncertainties and potential delays associated with our planned expansion into competitive local service;

·the passage of legislation or court decisions adversely affecting the telecommunications industry;

·our ability to repay our outstanding indebtedness;

·competition in the telecommunications industry; and

·the advent of new technology.

For more information, see the "Risk Factors" section beginning on page 11 of our Registration Statement on Form S-4 (Registration No. 333-36804) filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

You should not unduly rely on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. Except as required by law, we are not obligated to publicly release any revisions to these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date of this press release or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.

Madison River Capital, LLC operates as Madison River Communications and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Madison River Telephone Company, LLC. Madison River Communications operates and enhances rural telephone companies and uses advanced technology to provide competitive communications services in nearby markets. Madison River Telephone Company, LLC is owned by affiliates of Madison Dearborn Partners Inc., Goldman, Sachs & Co., Providence Equity Partners and members of management.