Rural Telephone and DSL

[Anonymous Poster]

It's all about $$$$$$, making money, NOT providing service.
Look at your phone bill, if there is a "locality surcharge" you are being screwed er I mean served by what is known as an REA company. REA companys have tremendous economic benefit to their owners, from being able to overcharge to being able to borrow taxpayer money at cheap rates.
I used to be served by Ogden Telephone Company, an REA company. Ogden got bought by Citizens Utilitys (actually a water company), who fired all the local employees. Citizens then used the borrowing power of Ogden Tel (still a seperate company although totally owned) to finance the takeover of the former Rochesteer Telephone Co. RTC totally surrounds OTC, and yet the OTC customers still pay more per line and have less access to service.
Minii exchanges, actually SLC96 units, are being installed in OTC territory, I was on one for a few years, till I started bitching to the PSC about having to wait up to 8 minutes for dial tone. Citizens, like all the utility holding companys is in the phone business to rape the subscriber, or service the customer the same way a farmer has a bull service a cow.
Federal regulations on rural telephone haven't changed a lot since the 1930s when the REA was set up. The feds allow rural phone cos to self certify, every 10 years, that they still meet REA standards, and their is no auditing of the information the rurals provide. REA certification is a license to steal. The holding companys don't give a rusty rats a$$ about the customer, and they don't have to.

 

[DavidInNH]

If I remember correctly, ISDN is only good for about 18,000 feet from the CO. I believe that one of my neighbors convinced them to install a repeater (they started out wanting him to pay for it). The monthly price is subject to several factors - you could easily end up paying a LOT more than $35/month.

-david

 

[Bird]

<font color=blue>Here in tejas Verizon (GTE) just sold all of their rural territories. They did this to bring the cost per line down. Of course Valor, the buyer, doesn't have the pockets of Verizon and so the service is going to deteriorate big time now.</font color=blue>

So you know exactly what I've got./w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

 

[manganos]

First if your really interested where I work I guess you could check my profile. I work specials for a telecommunications "giant" and get the same question day in and day out. DSL can be delivered up to distances of 75,000 feet. Yes I did say 75,000. Is it cost productive. NO. That is the main reason it hasn't been done except in one area out in the midwest. Those mini-offices most are talking about are SLC boxes. That is where the fiber terminates into a box and then it leaves the box on copper to the customer. Soon many telephone companies will be putting CO equipment for DSL in those remote terminals enabling DSL for many of the rual customers. The most populated areas are getting DSL first because of many issues I can't really go into here. I'd estimate most everyone is within range for DSL just give it time. New technology is coming in everyday now it is just up to the companies to use it. I'm dying for DSL and I'm out in the sticks too

 

[wroughtn_harv]

What I was using for my 18000 feet was the old distance between loading coils. You can go eighteen thousand feet without a load coil. But if you put in one coil they have to be put in at three thousand feet, nine thousand, fifteen thousand and then you have the perfect end section at eighteen thousand.

Of course when you call in to see if you can get DSL the person at the office looks at your line profile. My neighbor is on a subscriber carrier and so that eliminated him until my wife explained who to call and what to say to get him off the carrier and that way he can get DSL.

I've had it since it was first offered.

Rotr has a minihut not three hundred feet from his house. When they get the systems so they can install in such places he'll be about as happy a camper as you'll ever see.

 

[JoeR]

At one time electricity was a convenience too. If we allowed utility companies to offer service by return on investment, then rural areas would still not have electricity or phones. With a great deal of research, I have discovered that our tax dollars subsidize many rural telephone carriers, and many of them are not providing the service. Although, they are still taking the money! The rural initiative was enacted in 1996, and the "Universal Service Charge" was created to generate revenue for bundled services. Sadly, the reporting method to the U.S. Government is by means of zip code. If one customer has service in a given zip code, then the telephone company states they have provided services for the entire zip code area. Then the FCC and Congress really think that DSL and other services are available to 78% of all the zip codes. Which makes it sound like 78% of the population has these services available, and the Government believes the money was properly utilized by the local telephone companies. Overall, rural people pay the same if not more than customers in more populated areas for their telephone service.

Many people who live in the country are used to poor quality phone service, and consider it part of country living; although, the technology exists to improve the quality and we (rural people) need to insist on better quality service. Otherwise, the phone company will not improve anything unless it receives feedback from the customers. We pay premium rates for telephone service, and why should we pay for bad service or allow technology to pass us by?

Joe

 

[Bird]

<font color=blue>If one customer has service in a given zip code, then the telephone company states they have provided services for the entire zip code area</font color=blue>

In my zip code, we have two different phone companies with two different area codes. In fact, when I bought this place it was long distance to call the town my mail comes from./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

 

[Gary_in_Indiana]

Bird, that reminds me of a girl I dated in HS. She was miles out of town, yet a local call. However, to send her something in the mail I had to address it to her in another STATE!

Only in America! /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

 

[Ozarker]

It is still that way for half the people in the town where my mail goes. My phone bills use to be through the roof because my son's high school sweetheart lived in the long distance part of town.

Of course I am used to high phone bills. I don't remember ever paying less than $100 a month (usually more) from the time I got married 27 years ago until just the last couple of years.

 

[crown]

Bird,
If I didn't know better I'd swear you lived near me. I have the same problems with my phone, we have three lines the main talking line constantly goes out we call 48 hours later we get service restored but the problems persist. Amen about the DSL I would love to have it my company has offered to pay for DSL or cable unfortantly we have neither, they balked at the cost of Satelite, that said I would not trade my rural life for the suburbs for anything./w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif