SAN DIEGO--In a panel discussion last week as part of the Rural Telecom Summit at the NTCA Expo here, a group of industry experts said rural telcos face an uncertain future if they don’t adapt to inevitable changes.

Matt Polka, president and CEO of the American Cable Association, echoed others on the panel by saying that the move to an IP environment can’t be avoided. However, some carriers are simply choosing to ignore the signs.

“If you are not involved in moving aggressively to deploy and implement these advanced services, then your future might not be bright,” he said.

Thomas Rowland, president and CEO of North Central Telephone Cooperative in Lafayette, Tenn., and the newly elected president of NTCA, agreed but said the issue of how to fund network upgrades needs to be resolved.

“The other thing we need to do is to teach people what we’re doing,” he said, noting that it took time for rural carriers to teach consumers how to do things now taken for granted such as using touch-tone phone or directly dialing long distance.

On the topic of competition, virtually all panelists said it was inevitable that all telcos would face some competition, a point not everyone was willing to accept as early as last year. Singling out voice over IP, Rowland said the technology is both friend and foe.

“As we deploy broadband networks, we’re going to have people that want to use voice over IP,” he said. “The question is do we let someone else provide that or do we provide it ourselves.”

Tony Atwater, founder and executive vice president of Silver State Communications and a founder of Myrio, cited ESPN’s recent entry into the MVNO market as an example of the type of competition everyone would be facing.

“All bets are off in this area,” he said.