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NewSouth Communications and NuVox Communications Name Senior Management Team for Combined Enterprise

Posted on: Thursday, 4 March 2004, 06:00 CST

GREENVILLE, S.C. and ST. LOUIS, March 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Following their announcement last week of plans to merge the two companies, NewSouth Holdings, Inc. and NuVox, Inc. today jointly announced the combined company's senior management team. As announced previously, Jim Akerhielm will serve as the combined company's Chief Executive Officer and David L. Solomon will serve as Chairman of the Board. The senior management team will be comprised of executives from both companies, including the following individuals:

* Chief Financial Officer Stephen H. Shoemaker

(NewSouth Communications)

* General Counsel Riley M. Murphy

& Secretary (NewSouth Communications)

* Executive Vice President Christopher Benyo

of Sales & Marketing (NuVox Communications)

* Senior Vice President David K. Hudson

of Sales (NewSouth Communications)

* Vice President of Marketing J. Pendleton Gaines

(NewSouth Communications)

* Senior Vice President Laurence S. Dubow

of Customer Operations (NewSouth Communications)

* Senior Vice President Paul Pitts

of Network Operations (NuVox Communications)

& Engineering

* Chief Integration Officer Josephine Young

(NuVox Communications)

* Senior Vice President Marguerite A. Forrest

of Human Resources Integration (NuVox Communications)

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20040225/CLW032LOGO )

Last week, NewSouth and NuVox jointly announced that they had signed a definitive agreement for a merger of equals of the two privately held facilities-based communications providers. The combined company will operate under the name NuVox Communications, and will provide local, long distance, data, Internet, and advanced communications services to business customers across the Southeast and the Midwest. The combined enterprise would initially have approximately 36,000 business customers, 500,000 access lines in service, and annualized revenues exceeding $300 million.

"The merger of NewSouth and NuVox takes two strong companies and sets the foundation for one powerful company. The people at both NuVox and NewSouth are responsible for the success of each of these companies to date," commented Jim Akerhielm, President & CEO of NewSouth Communications and the CEO of the combined company. "The newly named members of this senior management team are exceptionally talented and very motivated to move the combined company forward. I am honored to have the opportunity to work with such a great group of people."

"This management team is uniquely qualified to successfully integrate the two companies by building on the strengths and experience of both NewSouth and NuVox. By doing so, they can then accelerate the new company's growth and position NuVox as the leading provider of communications services to business customers in the Southeast and Midwest," added David Solomon, Chairman & CEO of NuVox, who will serve as the Chairman of the combined company.

The merger has been approved by the Boards of Directors of both NewSouth and NuVox. Completion of the transaction is subject to approval by the stockholders of both companies, regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.

Biographical information on members of the new senior management team can be found at http://www.newsouth.com/ and at http://www.nuvox.com/ . Other key sales and operations leaders will be announced later.

About NewSouth Communications:

Headquartered in Greenville, South Carolina, NewSouth Communications is a privately held broadband Integrated Communications Provider (ICP) serving business customers in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Founded in 1997, the company offers a comprehensive selection of data, Internet, voice, and other advanced communications solutions. NewSouth has completed its network, which includes Cisco packet-based switches, Lucent Technologies, Inc. AnyMedia(TM) 5ESS-2000 switches, and Siemens Information and Communications Networks EWSD digital switches. For more information, visit http://www.newsouth.com/ .

About NuVox Communications:

NuVox Communications, a privately held Integrated Communications Provider based in St. Louis, MO, offers businesses and other end-users advanced integrated voice, data, and Internet products and services. The company provides dedicated and dial-up high-speed Internet access; Web site design and hosting; "traditional" local and long distance telephone services; and unified voice, e-mail, and fax messaging as well as advanced data services. NuVox's growing product portfolio also includes WAN management, audio conferencing, and remote access. NuVox provides its integrated voice and data services through advanced Nortel switches. NuVox is operating an LD network based on the Sonus Insignus platform. For more information, visit http://www.nuvox.com/ .

Certain statements in this release may constitute "forward-looking statements." When used in this release, words like "may,""will,""can,""should,""expect,""anticipate,""believe,""project," or "intend" and other similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Statements regarding future events and developments and future performance, as well as our expectations, beliefs, plans, or projections, are forward-looking statements which reflect only our predictions, assumptions, and estimates regarding future events and circumstances. Actual events or results may differ substantially as a result of risks and uncertainties facing us, including those regarding the continued development of the combined company's business, markets for the combined company's services and products, continued availability and sufficiency of capital, the risk that the merger will not be completed, the ability of NuVox and NewSouth to integrate successfully their businesses, the combined company's degree of financial leverage, the ability to establish and maintain relationships with incumbent local telephone companies and to secure transmission capacity, the impact of competitive services, pricing and alternative technologies, negative economic factors, regulatory requirements and uncertainties, and acquisitions and other strategic investments. The forward-looking statements are based on current expectations as of the date of these statements. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of future events, new information, or otherwise.

Photo: NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20040225/CLW032LOGOAP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org/PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.com

NewSouth Communications Corp.

CONTACT: Susanne Hite for NewSouth Communications, +1-864-672-5097, orhite@newsouth.com; or Randy McDougald for NuVox Communications,+1-864-331-8133, or rmcdougald@nuvox.com

Web site: http://www.newsouth.com/http://www.nuvox.com/

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