SRT Communications

Last updated
SRT Communications
Company type Cooperative
Industry Telecommunications
Founded1951
Headquarters Minot, North Dakota
Products Internet; Security; Phone
Total assets $147M USD (2016)
Number of employees
210+ (2017)
Website srt.com

SRT Communications (formerly Souris River Telecommunications) is the largest telecommunications cooperative in North Dakota, serving customers with Internet, Security Alarm and Video Surveillance, Phone, and Business Phone Systems and services.

Contents

The company is governed by a twelve-member Board of Directors covering four districts. As a cooperative, patronage capital credits are awarded to member customers. [1]

History and milestones

In 1951, the Verendrye Electric Cooperative board of directors established the Souris River Telephone Mutual Aid Corporation to bring telephone service to those living in the rural areas of McHenry and Ward Counties. The first telephone exchange, the town of Martin, was purchased for $500 and had 82 telephone customers. In 1960, Minot Air Force Base became SRT's largest phone exchange, and by 1970 rotary dial telephones were replaced with touch pad style phones. In 1980, SRT began to sell cable television service, first available in the town of Westhope.

Although telephone cooperatives usually operate within set boundaries, in 1990 SRT reached outside their traditional territory to install telephone wire throughout the 17 floors of the North Dakota State Capitol building. Again expanding their offerings, in 1990 SRT became an agent to CommNet 2000, handling a new cellular phone system in Minot, and in 1992 opened their own long distance company. In 1994 SRT acquired Minot Telephone Company (formerly Northern States Power Telephone), the state's largest independent phone company serving approximately 25,000 lines in Minot, Burlington and Surrey.

In the late 1990s SRT added Internet and Wireless Phones to their services, and in 2007 purchased the Velva telephone exchange from North Dakota Telephone Company in Devils Lake.

SRT Communications joined the State of North Dakota in suing telemarketing company WebSmart Interactive in 2003. The company owed SRT over $140,000 in unpaid bills. [2]

In 2004, SRT employees James Newman and Dennis Schott were recognized by the Excellence in Leadership Award Program of the National Telecommunication Cooperative Association for their contributions to rural telecommunications in North Dakota. [3]

According to general manager Steve Lysne, SRT Communications has built much of the infrastructure for rural broadband in North Dakota and would not need funds from the 2009 Stimulus Package. [4] SRT has worked to expand the number of 9-1-1 towers in Ward County and was awarded a Community Public Safety Award from the Ward County Emergency Management Department in 2008. [5]

Today, as North Dakota's largest telephone cooperative, SRT Communications, Inc. employs over 200 people and serves approximately 99,000 telephone customers in north central North Dakota. [6]

Products and services

Internet

SRT provides Internet service to rural and city homes through copper and fiber optic cable.

Security systems

Home and business security systems are monitored 24 hours by a UL approved monitoring station. Video surveillance specializing in home, farm and ranch, and small business is also available.

Personal home safety

SRT offers Home Safety systems in which a person can push a button to alert the 24-hour monitoring station to contact family or authorities in case of a fall, break in, or other emergency.

Telephone

SRT offers landline telephone, long distance, and calling features such as voice mail and caller ID.

Business services

SRT provides advanced voice, data and wireless communications systems to businesses of all sizes.

Related Research Articles

Present-day telecommunications in Canada include telephone, radio, television, and internet usage. In the past, telecommunications included telegraphy available through Canadian Pacific and Canadian National.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bell Canada</span> Canadian telecommunications company

Bell Canada is a Canadian telecommunications company headquartered at 1 Carrefour Alexander-Graham-Bell in the borough of Verdun, Quebec, in Canada. It is an ILEC in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec; as such, it was a founding member of the Stentor Alliance. It is also a CLEC for enterprise customers in the western provinces.

Wireless local loop (WLL) is the use of a wireless communications link as the "last mile / first mile" connection for delivering plain old telephone service (POTS) or Internet access to telecommunications customers. Various types of WLL systems and technologies exist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BellSouth</span> American telecommunications company

BellSouth, LLC was an American telecommunications holding company based in Atlanta, Georgia. BellSouth was one of the seven original Regional Bell Operating Companies after the U.S. Department of Justice forced the American Telephone & Telegraph Company to divest itself of its regional telephone companies on January 1, 1984.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Altafiber</span> American telecommunications company

Altafiber, Inc., formerly Cincinnati Bell, is a regional telecommunications service provider based in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. It provides landline telephone, fiber-optic Internet, and IPTV services through its subsidiaries Altafiber Home Phone and Hawaiian Telcom, which are the incumbent local exchange carriers for the Greater Cincinnati metropolitan area and Hawaii. Other subsidiaries provide enterprise information technology services and long distance calling.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mercury Communications</span> British telephone company

Mercury Communications was a national telephone company in the United Kingdom, formed in 1981 as a subsidiary of Cable & Wireless, to challenge the then-monopoly of British Telecom (BT). Although it proved only moderately successful at challenging BT's dominance, it led the way for new communication companies to attempt the same.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alltel</span> Former American telecommunications company

Alltel was a landline, wireless and general telecommunications services provider, primarily based in the United States. Before its wireless division was acquired by Verizon Wireless and AT&T, Alltel provided cellular service to 34 states and had approximately 13 million subscribers. As a regulatory condition of the acquisition by Verizon, a small portion of Alltel was spun off and continued to operate under the same name in six states, mostly in rural areas. Following the merger, Alltel remained the ninth largest wireless telecommunications company in the United States, with approximately 800,000 customers. On January 22, 2013, AT&T announced they were acquiring what remained of Alltel from Atlantic Tele-Network for $780 million in cash.

Northwestel Inc. is a Canadian telecommunications company that is the incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) and long-distance carrier in the territories of Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and part of Northern British Columbia. Originally established in 1979 by the Canadian National Railway from CN's northern telecommunications assets, it has been owned by BCE Inc. since 1988.

Northwestern Bell Telephone Company is an American communications provider that serves the states of the upper Midwest opposite the Southwestern Bell area, including Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Nebraska. As of 1991 the name Northwestern Bell is no longer the corporate identity, although Northwestern Bell is now owned by the Lumen Technologies and is therefore doing business as Lumen. Doing business as names were not begun before 2001; that is why the Northwestern Bell name was defunct but later revived by CenturyLink.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tbaytel</span>

Tbaytel, formerly the Thunder Bay Telephone Company, is a municipally-owned telecommunications company operating in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, and the surrounding area. Tbaytel's services include data, voice, wireless, internet, digital TV and security.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ice Wireless</span> Northern Canadian telecommunications company

Ice Wireless is a Canadian mobile network operator and telecommunications company that provides 4G/LTE mobility services, mobile broadband Internet, and fixed line telephone in Canada's northern territories: Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Nunavik, Quebec. The company's corporate headquarters are located in Markham, Ontario.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Embarq</span> American technology company

Embarq Corporation was the largest independent local exchange carrier in the United States, serving customers in 18 states and providing local, long-distance, high-speed data and wireless services to residential and business customers. It had been formerly the local telephone division (LTD) of Sprint Nextel until 2006, when it was spun off as an independent company. Embarq produced more than $6 billion in revenues annually, and had approximately 18,000 employees. It was based in Overland Park, Kansas.

Basin Electric Power Cooperative is a wholesale electric generation and transmission cooperative based in North Dakota that provides electricity to 3 million customers in nine U.S. states. The roots of the cooperative go back to 1960 when Leland Olds and ten power suppliers created Giant Power Cooperative. Giant Power was first going to be a generation and transmission cooperative, but to keep electricity cheaper for rural customers, Basin Electric Power Cooperative was started in 1961. Today, Basin Electric's power sources include coal, natural gas, hydroelectric, wind, waste heat, and nuclear. The current CEO and General Manager is Todd Telesz. A subsidiary of Basin Electric, Dakota Gasification Company, operates the Great Plains Synfuels Plant, which captures and sequesters nearly 50% of its carbon dioxide emissions in a system developed during the Carter administration. In 2005, the membership of Basin Electric passed a resolution requiring 10 percent of electricity demand to be provided by renewable forms of energy. At the end of 2009, Basin Electric finished construction on a 77 turbine wind energy project.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frontier Communications</span> American telecommunications company

Frontier Communications Parent, Inc. is an American telecommunications company. Known as Citizens Utilities Company until 2000, Citizens Communications Company until 2008, and Frontier Communications Corporation until 2020, as a communications provider with a fiber-optic network and cloud-based services, Frontier offers broadband internet, digital television, and computer technical support to residential and business customers in 25 states. In some areas it also offers home phone services.

Big River Telephone Company, LLC is a telecommunications company located in the Midwestern United States. Big River Telephone is classified as a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) and is a wholesale digital provider of voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services to the cable industry.

CentraCom Interactive is a telecommunications company, which provides fiber-optic communication, cable internet, wireless broadband, DSL service, phone service, and cable TV to much of central, north and western Utah. CentraCom is DBA of Central Utah Telephone, Inc.

Traffic pumping, also known as access stimulation, is a controversial practice by which some local exchange telephone carriers in rural areas of the United States inflate the volume of incoming calls to their networks, and profit from the greatly increased intercarrier compensation fees to which they are entitled by the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Lumos is a telecommunications provider, based in Waynesboro, Virginia; and High Point, North Carolina, United States, offering landline and cellular telephone, residential and business optical fiber services, web hosting, yellow pages, and digital television. The company announced a merger with North State Communications effective August 15, 2022.

The history of AT&T dates back to the invention of the telephone. The Bell Telephone Company was established in 1877 by Alexander Graham Bell, who obtained the first US patent for the telephone, and his father-in-law, Gardiner Greene Hubbard. Bell and Hubbard also established American Telephone and Telegraph Company in 1885, which acquired the Bell Telephone Company and became the primary telephone company in the United States. This company maintained an effective monopoly on local telephone service in the United States until anti-trust regulators agreed to allow AT&T to retain Western Electric and enter general trades computer manufacture and sales in return for its offer to split the Bell System by divesting itself of ownership of the Bell Operating Companies in 1982.

Shentel, officially Shenandoah Telecommunications Company, is a publicly traded telecommunications company headquartered in Edinburg, Virginia. It operates a digital wireless and wireline network in rural Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania.

References

  1. Souris River Telephone Pays Out $401,000 To Subscribers. Mouse River Farmers Press. 29 April 1976.
  2. Minot joins others in suing WebSmart Interactive. Associated Press. 7 October 2003.
  3. Boyles, Mary. NTCA members worldwide make commitment to excellence. The Exchange. 1 February 2004.
  4. Schramm, Jill. Discussing local impact: Businesses see good uses for federal stimulus money. Minot Daily News. 21 February 2009.
  5. SRT Award. KXMCTV Minot. 17 September 2008.
  6. SRT gets Active with Zhone deployment. Fierce Telecom. 28 March 2008.