OPASTCO: Big business ripe for small telco service
By: By Carol Wilson
.--Business customers may not be aware of the facilities that independent rural telcos can offer them, but they will be wooed by the level of customer service they get, a panel of speakers said today at the 43rd Annual OPASTCO Summer Conference and Trade Show. ...
OPASTCO: Peering offers ILECs real promise
By: By Carol Wilson
HOT SPRINGS, Va.--Independent telephone companies face major competition from the newly merged AT&T and Verizon, as well as from wireless substitution and cable VoIP services. But they can head some of those threats off by offering their own VoIP and IP-services and creating a nationwide peering network...
OPASTCO: Video not always the answer
By: By Carol Wilson
HOT SPRINGS, Va.--Video may be the hot topic for many large telecom service providers, but it doesn't always make good business sense for smaller telcos, a couple of industry leaders warned today....
OPASTCO: Rural telco unity increasingly important
By: By Carol Wilson
HOT SPRINGS, Va.--Independent telephone companies are at a critical juncture in their history and run multiple risks in both the regulatory and competitive arenas, speakers at the 43rd Annual OPASTCO Summer Convention and Trade Show warned Monday...
Ruckus raises one in rural markets
By: By Dan O'Shea
Ruckus Wireless, a Sunnyvale, Calif., company whose MediaFlex router solution strengthens 802.11b/g signals for better in-home distribution of services such as IPTV and voice over Wi-Fi, said it recently has added 15 rural service providers to its previous customer base of six rural telcos....
An MPEG alternative
By: Ed Gubbins
Rural telcos have a particular dilemma in trying to deliver video to their customers: namely, the threat of signal degradation as video traffic treks across the long copper loops that span the lonesome prairies...
Content, set-top stars align for MPEG-4 debut
By: By Carol Wilson
The MPEG-4 clouds are about to part for IPTV deployment by independent telcos...
People helping people helps Integra
By: By Dan O'Shea
Integra Telecom's "high-touch" customer service operation may seem low-tech, but in a consolidated, automated environment, the anomaly could be the edge...
Keeping customer service at home
By: By Stephanie Dell
Bucking the trend of outsourcing customer service overseas, Alltel is expanding and investing in its customer service call centers in the U.S....
Paving the way to rural America
By: By Sarah Reedy
Student interns return to their hometowns to promote WildBlue Internet service, conencting rural areas and their futures...
The upside to different
By: By Tim McElligott
Montana's Chinook Wireless goes against the grain in more ways than one as it converts its network from CDMA to GSM and stakes its five-year plan on being the alternative...
Windstream stands alone
By: By Tim McElligott
The separation of Alltel's wireless and wireline businesses as well as the merger between the landline business and Valor Communications was announced in December 2005....
Communicating in an unconquerable land
By: By Tim McElligott
With the amount of work under way and under review at Montana's 3 Rivers Communications, a few more elk, mule deer and black bears may just avoid the piercing arrow or the bullet and live to see another season. Who has time for the hunt?...
MPEG-4 set-top delays hurt Tut’s second quarter
By: By Ed Gubbins
Delays in the availability of MPEG-4 set-top boxes and their middleware led to the second-quarter revenue shortfall reported by equipment vendor Tut Systems yesterday, Chairman and CEO Sal D'Auria said in a speech at an investor conference....
TIA: Video franchising bill must pass
By: By Dan O'Shea
The Telecommunications Industry Association, whose membership consists of many network equipment manufacturers that cater to both telcos and cable TV companies, wants see national video franchising legislation be approved quickly by the U.S. Senate, or it may run the risk of slowing broadband deployment....
Incumbents back number-based USF funding
By: By Carol Wilson
An unusual set of incumbent bedfellows, including the lobbying organizations for the telephone, wireless and cable industries, has come together to back a plan to adopt a numbers-based system for collecting Universal Service Fund money...
Embarq links wireline-wireless voicemail
By: By Kevin Fitchard
Just months independent of parent company Sprint, new ILEC Embarq announced its first fixed-mobile convergence service, an integrated voice mail system combining the mailboxes of a wireless and home phone lines...
Comcast offers triple play for $99
By: By Carol Wilson
Comcast is ratcheting up the competition for bundle discounts, starting in San Francisco with a $99 promotional offer for the first year of voice, data and video services...
Texas telco first to roll out NRTC IPTV
By: By Ed Gubbins
Valley Telephone Cooperative (VTCI), a rural telco based in Raymondville, Texas, will become the first telco co-op to roll out IPTV service using a turnkey video offering provided by the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative (NRTC)...
Second time around IPTV Warwick goes with Pannaway
By: By Tim McElligott
As an early player in VDSL technology, Warwick Valley Telephone Co. learned important lessons about its application and limitations. ...
Embarq bundles up with wireless
By: By Jason Meyers
The newly branded regional carrier Embarq, formerly the local division of Sprint, has entered the wireless market with an offering designed to weave wireless and wireline together for its local constituents...
Globalcomm: 3 Rivers buys CopperCom switches in fives
By: By Tim McElligott
CHICAGO--Montana’s 3 Rivers Communications purchased and installed five CopperCom Converged Switching eXchange (CSX) next-generation softswitches as part of what Coppercom called this week an aggressive transition to next-generation services...
Globalcomm: Nortel gets small with softswitch
By: By Tim McElligott
CHICAGO--Nortel unveiled a new, smaller softswitch this week aimed at the small- to medium-sized service provider market. The Nortel Communication Server 1500 (CS 1500) can be seen at Globalcomm and will begin field trials in the fourth ...
Grand Mound expands CLEC with CopperCom switch
By: By Tim McElligott
Grand Mound Cooperative Telephone Association has replaced its legacy Class 5 switching system with CopperCom’s Converged Switching eXchange next-generation switch as part of the Iowa-based CLEC expansion strategy...
