Rural Telecommunications articles from March 2005

Rural Telecommunications archives from March 2005

Standing on solid ground.(technologies and service offering of telecommunications providers)(Editorial)
March 1, 2005... To say there is a plethora of options for customers when it comes to their telecommunications demands is an understatement of immense proportion; just ask any rural telco manager. And just when that manager thinks he has come up with the right...

VoIP in 2005.(voice of internet protocol)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... Jeff Pulver, a pioneer of Internet telephony, and president and CEO of pulver.com, has made a number of predictions for the VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) industry in 2005 [www.pulver.com]: * VoIP will cross the "early-adapter chasm"...

E-payments surpass checks.(Electronic payment and check payments transactions)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... Electronic payment transactions in the United States have exceeded check payments for the first time, according to research by the Federal Reserve. Electronic payment transactions totaled 44.5 billion in 2003, outpacing the 36.7 billion...

Kudos done right.(employee recognition methods)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... Recognizing employees goes a long way toward building loyalty and hard work, but managers often are not trained in proper award-presentation skills. This often means a missed chance to underscore important organizational messages and to thank...

Mauritius goes wireless.(Navini Networks Inc. to install wireless broadband technology in the island)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... The island of Mauritius, situated east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, is going all wireless. Texas-based Navini Networks will deploy its non-line-of-sight, wide-area wireless broadband technology across the small island. Given the...

The dark and bright sides of rural telecom.
March 1, 2005... Today's advanced telecommunications encompass all the things we have been promised since the comic books of the 1950s and the dot-com boom of the 1990s: wristwatch videoconferencing, telemedicine diagnostics and ubiquitous always-on,...

How do you educate employees about new offerings?
March 1, 2005... With the fast-paced developments that continue to enrich the telecommunications industry, it may seem difficult for rural telcos to continually update their staff on the latest and greatest offerings. How do managers educate or train their...

Bundling for success: a pitch for the triple play.(Dakota Central Telecommunications)(Cover Story)
March 1, 2005... According to RHK, a San Francisco-based telecom analyst firm, service providers will find it increasingly difficult to keep existing customers, sign on new ones and increase profitability unless they offer bundled services--voice, data and...

A Q&A on the state of fiber.(questions and answers with congressional representative Amo Houghton)(Interview)
March 1, 2005... Take us back to 1970 and the invention of optical fiber. Did you realize how it would impact modern telecommunications? How does anyone predict what the world will look like in the future, but we were certain that fiber could have a huge...

Deploying fiber in rural America: a case study.(Federated Telephone Cooperative)
March 1, 2005... In the mid 1990s, Federated Telephone Cooperative in Chokio, Minn., was fast approaching a time when it was going to have to replace its copper facilities in some of its exchanges. As management pondered the matter, they decided that upgrading...

The latest greatest WiMAX on the horizon.(worldwide interoperability for microwave access)
March 1, 2005... Broadband wireless access (BWA) was expected to be the third technology supporting ubiquitous broadband, in addition to digital subscriber line (DSL) and cable modem. But the development of BWA in the past decade has been disappointing. The...

Annual Meeting roundup.(National Telephone Cooperative Association's Annual Meeting and EXPO '05)
March 1, 2005... Opportunities for learning, networking and plenty of down-home, Texas-sized fun were in abundance at NTCA's Annual Meeting and EXPO '05 in San Antonio, February 13-16. More than 2,800 attendees experienced interactive sessions on important...

'Triple play' hits NTCA's EXPO '05.(National Telephone Cooperative Association annual Meeting & EXPO '05)
March 1, 2005... Echoing the "triple play" theme of NTCA's 2005 Annual Meeting, held in San Antonio, Texas, February 13-16, this year's EXPO '05 highlighted products that combine voice, Internet and TV services in one broadband delivery system, such as digital...

The state of the association.(National Telephone Cooperative Association annual meeting & EXPO 2005)
March 1, 2005... Good morning. Welcome to your annual meeting and San Antonio, one of my favorite cities. A number of significant events marked 2004. The election spared us the trauma we experienced in 2000. The stock market finished on a positive note....

Award winners.(National Telephone Cooperative Association annual meeting & EXPO 2005)
March 1, 2005... Following are the winners of NTCA's 2005 Annual Awards, which recognize the outstanding achievements of the leaders in rural telecommunications. NTCA Chief Executive Officer Michael E. Brunner presented the awards February 16 at the...

NTCA 2005 policy resolutions.(National Telephone Cooperative Association)
March 1, 2005... I. INVOLVEMENT IN THE ADVOCACY PROCESS--A VITAL RESPONSIBILITY WHEREAS, NTCA and its members have a long history of strong involvement in the advocacy process; and, WHEREAS, NTCA embraces a multifaceted approach to the advocacy process...

VoIP in rural America NTCA members take the plunge.(voice over Internet protocol, National Telephone Cooperative Association)
March 1, 2005... Voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), the technology that converts voice into data and uses a high-speed Internet connection to send and receive calls, has the telecommunications industry abuzz. It has fueled debates and generated plenty of...

Customer contests make for winning sales.
March 1, 2005... "Everyone wants to be a winner." This universal ambition applies to customers, too. So why not accommodate them? Hold an in-store contest that rewards shoppers with exciting prizes. The result will be happy customers and busy cash registers....

Taking on the Internet.
March 1, 2005... The technology industry in the last decade has seen its share of business flameouts, including the widely publicized failures of dot-com and technology-related companies. Reuters reported in 2002 that one in five dot-com companies became...

Riding the wave of innovation.(Column)
March 1, 2005... If you've reached my column in this issue of Rural Telecommunications, by now you have read about such emerging technologies as WiMAX, Internet protocol television (IPTV) and fiber-to-the-premise (FTTP). Perhaps this issue introduced you to...