FairPoint Buys into Berkshire Cable

Rural telecom FairPoint Communications Inc. will snap up a cluster of cable
customers in Columbia County, N.Y. as part of a stock acquisition of a fellow
telco.

Charlotte, N.C.-based FairPoint has signed a stock purchase agreement to
acquire Berkshire Telephone Corp. and its cable subsidiary, Berkshire Cable
Corp.

The deal will be made final pending regulatory approvals.

Berkshire is a local exchange carrier providing cable, paging, Internet
access and long-distance services to more than 6,700 access lines in Kinderhook,
Valatie, Niverville, Stuyvesant and Stuyvesant Falls.

That is just next door to Taconic Telephone Corp., one of 29 rural telco
companies FairPoint operates.