Rural Telecommunications articles from July 2002

Rural Telecommunications archives from July 2002

The big picture. (From the Editor).
July 1, 2002... It's no fluke or one-time deal. NTCA members, in spite of relentless hurdles, and often at a daunting cost, time and again continue to provide their communities with state-of-the-art communications options. It seems that one deployment is...

Beware of E-mail fraud. (Short Takes).(survey concerns unsolicited e-mail offers)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2002... E-mail fraud is alive and well and lurking in many an inbox, according to the National Consumer League (NCL), a nonprofit consumer organization. In a "daily poll" conducted recently 27,000 of 28,655 respondents said they had received...

Teens prefer Internet over TV. (Short Takes).(How Children Use Media Technology)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2002... Thought watching television is a big deal for kids? Think again. A new survey found that it's tire Internet kids can't jive without. In a recent study. "How Children Use Media Technology," Knowledge Networks/ Statistical Research (KN/SRI)...

Diminishing cyber disk. (Short Takes).(information technology security)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... In any crises management plan, businesses look to mitigate damage from natural and manmade disasters. The Privacy Council advises companies to incorporate cyber risk into that plan, as well. "Managers are finding that weaknesses in...

Error-free Web browsing. (Short Takes).(Internet searching research)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2002... Cruising the Internet is likely to be a frustrating chore for many visitors, as nearly two-thirds of visits end in some sort of Web application failure, according to a recent study by the Business Internet Group of San Francisco (BIG-SF), a...

Universal service: more than a 'meal ticket' for CETCs. (Perspective).(competitive eligible telecommunications carrier)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... In crafting the 1996 Telecommunications Act, Congress rightly realized that the need for universal service support is engendered by a special set of market circumstances. In order to receive such support, Congress mandated that each qualified...

What methods do you use to market to your customers? (First Person).(rural telecommunications industry)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... We put information on the message page of our customers' bills," said Mary Anna Hite, general manager of Pembroke Telephone Co. (Pembroke, Ga.). Hite said the telco recently hired someone who will be in charge of marketing and public relations,...

E-mail marketing: handy tool or business hazard?(electronic mail and telecommunication services industry)
July 1, 2002... In the mind of the average consumer, the barrier separating "spam" from legitimate electronic communication is practically membranous. Internet users are regularly deluged with unsolicited e-mails hawking everything from lowball home loans to...

Churn: are rural telcos immune?(telecommunication service providers and customer relations)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2002... Customer churn, or the tendency for customers to move from one competitive provider to another, has long been a significant problem for competitive telecommunications companies. Wireless and Internet service providers (ISPs) alike historically...

Customer data can yield a marketing gold mine.(telecommunication services industry)
July 1, 2002... When you think about your telco's most important assets, what comes to mind--cable plant, buildings, vehicles? A less obvious asset that telcos often overlook can help them manage their relationships with customers, as well as increase revenues...

Launching new services in North Dakota: a case study.(Dakota Central Telecommunications)
July 1, 2002... Digital divide? Nobody in the remote are served by this co-op ever heard of it. First, it was dial-up access to a relatively new thing called the Internet. The year was 1995, and already, a telephone co-op serving fewer than 3,000 customers in...

2002 NTCA TeleChoice Awards.(excellence in telecommunications marketing or public relations)
July 1, 2002... Presented on these pages are the winning entries in the Fifth Annual NTCA TeleChoice Awards. The TeleChoice Award winners were honored during the PRNet conference April 28-30 in Seattle, Wash. As in past years, the competition was intense, as...

Valley Telephone demolishes DSL roadblocks. (Industry Innovator).
July 1, 2002... Valley Telephone Cooperative (Raymondville, Texas) works by the slogan: "If you want hi-tech services, move to a remote ranch in South Texas." But to some people, the idea of placing "hi-tech services" and "remote ranch" in the same sentence...

Community connection: Hemingford launches Internet portal. (Member Focus).(Hemingford Cooperative Telephone Co.)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... In October 2001, Hemingford cooperative Telephone (Hemingford Neb.) began looking for ways to enhance its corporate image and add value to its Internet product. A review of several competitors' Web sites showed that there were many efforts to...

Homeland security: the states respond; all 50 states now have homeland security offices. (A Word from the States).
July 1, 2002... The horrors of September 11 left the nation and the world in a daze. Over and over, the murmurs on the street were, "How could this happen?" "Who did this?" and simply, "Why?" People who placed their faith in government, industry and law...

Answering the challenge: keeping young people in rural America: many youth have been misled by popular media to believe that rural communities lag behind urban areas in terms of opportunities and access to advanced services. (Executive Viewpoint).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... During the Foundation for Rural Service's (FRS) 2002 Youth Tour, a young man from Wittensville, Ky., made a powerful statement about the state of affairs in rural America. Sam Allen, a 17-year-old youth tour delegate, discussed the need for...