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Welcome to the Company. We are proud of the high standards of customer service,
quality and technology that our name has come to represent.
Glenns Ferry, Idaho is home to Rural Telephone Company. This small town on the banks
of the Snake River is also a historic landmark on the Oregon Trail. It was at Glenns
Ferry that the pioneers decided to either cross the river into Oregon, or head west
to California.
The pioneer spirit that embodied the hardy breed of people who settled the West,
lives on today in the men and women of Rural Telephone Company.
Rural Telephone serves remote areas of Idaho, Nevada, Washington and Oregon. The
territory includes some of the most spectacular natural beauty in the entire United
States. However, beneath its beauty is a rugged and often dangerous land of treacherous
mountains, deep canyons, sun-scorched deserts and seemingly impenetrable forests.
Winter snow drifts, spring mud slides and summer lightning strikes add to the challenge
of providing telephone service to thousands of square miles of wilderness. For more
than 2,300 Idaho subscribers, Rural Telephone Company is their primary link to the
outside world.
With a subscriber density of less than one per mile, Company technicians will often
travel overnight to reach subscribers as close as 60 miles or as far as 600 miles
from Glenns Ferry.
The Company grew slowly as Mr. James Martell brought telephone service to previously
un-served areas. In 1985, Boise River and Prairie, Idaho as well as Jarbidge and
Red Rock, Nevada were added to the service territory.
Cable routes, often inaccessible to even four-wheel drive vehicles, were walked
by foot. Today, snowmobiles are often used to reach subscribers and helicopter rentals
are not uncommon.
In 1988, the North Fork and Tuscarora, Nevada exchanges were acquired. These systems
were known as "shared/sometimes" systems - shared with coyotes needing a teething
ring and cattle needing a scratching post. Sometimes they even worked, but not with
any degree of reliability. The area included two of the largest ranches in the United
States, and several large gold mining operations.
Tipanuk and Atlanta, Idaho also came on board in 1988. Tipanuk is located between
Mountain Home and Boise covering 139 square miles, but its twenty inhabitants needed
a link with the outside world. So did the thirty residents of Atlanta, a 252 square
mile area served by only two roads. One road is closed in the winter, and the other
is "open if" the snow isn't too deep.
The Company also assumed responsibility for the Shoup, Idaho area when the Idaho
Public Utilities Commission turned to the Company to restore the existing, but rapidly
deteriorating service; which featured magneto phones and aerial cable strung "on
poles or whatever else was handy". This pristine country extends some 60 miles along
the River of No Return. The availability of dependable phone service has made the
area a major draw for fishing and rafting enthusiasts. A new digital system was
installed in October 1990, an occasion that attracted Rural Electrification Administration
(REA) dignitaries and national media attention.
It is the everyday business of living in remote areas that make the telephone so
valuable. Support of the Universal Service Fund (USF) has made it possible for the
Company to provide service to un-served areas and upgrade service for existing subscribers.
USF support and the extraordinary people of Rural Telephone Company are bringing
modern telecommunications and an enriched quality of life to often isolated and
overlooked areas.
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