Communications

Cut off from the world

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Brief by Central Staff

Communications – July 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine

Much of Central Colorado and the San Luis Valley were disconnected from the rest of the world for five hours on the afternoon of May 31.

According to Qwest Communications, a construction worker cut a fiber-optic cable between Pueblo and Walsenburg. Long-distance and Internet service were lost in Salida and Buena Vista, and many areas in the San Luis Valley lost 911 emergency service as well. Most cellphones lost their long-distance connections, too, although service not related to Qwest or Verizon was not affected.

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An open letter to Ctelco Internet

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Letter from Lisa Micklin

Communications – November 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

An open letter to Ctelco Internet and FairPoint Communications:

I remember fondly when the Ctelco office was a doublewide trailer behind the Hooper school. It was always a pleasure to pay my phone bill in person so that I could visit with all of you. As the San Luis Valley grew, I was so proud of you when your new office was built in Mosca. And, imagine my thrill when you made Hot Mouse Wireless DSL available to us!

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10 years of local internet service

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Brief by Central Staff

Communications – October 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

This month marks the 10th anniversary of local Internet service in Salida, Buena Vista, and Leadville. Before October of 1995, there were no local Internet Service Providers (ISPs, in the jargon). Then Rocky Mountain Internet, based in Colorado Springs, partnered with Ken Swinehart (who now runs Amigo.Net), to provide local access.

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If only Qwest would try selling something we want

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Brief by Central Staff

Communications – September 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

Although Colorado has a “do not call” list to discourage tele marketers, it doesn’t cover companies that you have an established business relationship with.

Thus at least once a month, we get an annoying call from Qwest, the local telephone monopoly, advising us that Qwest now offers long-distance service and we could enjoy the convenience of only one telephone bill, etc. We explain that we’re happy with our current long-distance carrier (MCI, which is bankrupt but still functioning well enough), and have no desire to switch, and would Qwest please quit calling until it has something we want, like DSL.

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Those old phone PRefixes

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Letter from Roger Williams

Communications – May 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

Editors:

Expressions for cold? How about Cold enough…to freeze the balls off a brass monkey; colder than a witch’s teat. (A few summer days here would be hot enough to melt the balls off the brass monkey).

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AT&T Broadband will sell our cable systems to Bresnan

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Brief by Central Staff

Communications – May 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

A couple of years ago, Qwest tried to sell off some of its rural telephone exchanges, and the buyer backed away after looking at the books. Now AT&T Broadband has announced the sale of some of its smaller cable TV systems to Bresnan Communications of White Plains, N.Y.

Among the 41 systems in Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana to be sold are those in Salida, Buena Vista, Alamosa, Durango, and Montrose.

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Citizens hangs up on Qwest in phone sale

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Brief by Central Staff

Communications – September 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

Citizens Communications Co. of Stamford, Conn., has terminated an agreement to buy rural telephone exchanges from Qwest Communications International of Denver.

The proposed transaction involved 45,000 lines in 17 exchanges in rural Colorado, among them Alamosa, Buena Vista, Crested Butte, Del Norte, Fairplay, Gunnison, Leadville, Meeker, Mesa Verde, Monte Vista, Oak Creek, Salida, South Fork, and Yampa.

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Park County gets another improvement in phone service

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Brief by Central Staff

Communications – August 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

Park County is getting more connected with itself all the time these days.

The most recent improvement, approved on June 28 by the Federal Communications Commission, is an expanded local calling zone, so that it’s a local call between Bailey and Fairplay.

They’re only 30 miles apart, but the complication had been a boundary known as a LATA, which is essentially an area code. Fairplay was in 719, and Bailey was in 303 (and now also 920).

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Almost the phone directory we wanted

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Brief by Central Staff

Communications – July 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

Sometimes we think of this magazine as an experiment in applied cultural geography — that is, we want more and more people to think that there’s a part of this world that can be defined as “Central Colorado.”

So we’re always pleased to see Central Colorado appear in business names or on regional facilities (such as the airport in Buena Vista).

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We know it’s not what they meant, but …

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Brief by Central Staff

Communications – July 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

Park County residents will see their telephone rates go up by 20¢ a month, as the county increases its monthly 911 surcharge from 50¢ to 70¢. This will finance some immediate upgrades for emergency response, and eventually, a Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) system that works with the Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) system.

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Camouflage for cell-phone towers

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Brief by Central Staff

Communications – January 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

When we started this magazine nearly seven years ago, Central Colorado was pretty much a “cell-free zone.” Now people call their friends from atop 14ers.

Cellular telephones have a short range — there has to be an antenna nearby. In towns, the fixed antennæ are often hidden inside church steeples and the like, but out in the country, there may be no place to hide it.

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Filling in the blanks on our FM dial

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Brief by Central Staff

Communications – November 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

There was a time, not much more than a dozen years ago, when FM radio in Salida, and much of Central Colorado as well, began and ended with KVRH (now 92.3 mhz, but it was 92.1 back then). In fact, we can remember when it began broadcasting in stereo, sometime around 1980.

That’s the oldest signal hereabouts. The newest will likely appear sometime soon, depending on fund-raising and the weather. It will be a translator at 89.5 for KCME, a non-commercial classical-music station in Colorado Springs.

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Life may be better here, but the profits aren’t

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Brief by Central Staff

Communications – August 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine

Life may be better here, but the profits are better elsewhere

Those “Life’s Better Here” ads on TV generally offer rural scenery to promote US West’s telephone service, but except when it’s shooting commercials, the local telephone monopoly prefers profitable population density to unprofitable scenery. It put 18 Colorado exchanges — among them Salida, Alamosa, Leadville, Buena Vista, Monte Vista, Crested Butte, Del Norte, Fairplay, Gunnison, and South Fork — up for sale last year.

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Services they don’t offer here

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Sidebar by Ed Quillen

Communications – May 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine

We got tired of slimy and illegible faxes, so last fall we bought a plain-paper fax machine for Colorado Central. Its output quality is excellent, but it has been a headache to get it to work properly with our phones: we want it to grab faxes and leave other calls for us or the answering machine.

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Is there life after U.S. West?

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Article by Rayna Bailey

Communications – May 1999 – Colorado Central Magazin

BEING DUMPED by a lover following a long-term relationship — that maybe wasn’t always a great romance, but after all those years was at least familiar and comfortable — is painful. When the dumping comes in the form of a Dear John letter, pain often is replaced with anger, frustration, and a fear of the unknown: What happens next? Will I get to keep kitty, the leather sofa and the Jimmy Buffet CDs?

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Ma Bell puts us up for adoption

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Article by Central Staff

Communications – March 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine

Ma Bell Puts Us Up for Adoption

US West, the regional Baby Bell telephone monopoly, wants out of Central Colorado. The company has put 18 rural Colorado exchanges up for sale, and these include Salida, Buena Vista, Fairplay, Gunnison, Monte Vista, and Alamosa.

Why doesn’t US West want us any more?

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A roadblock in the on-ramp to the information highway

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Article by Ed Quillen

Communications – March 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine

A roadblock in the on-ramp to the Information Highway

For many people in Central Colorado lately, Internet access has consisted of a busy signal, rather than the squeaks and hums of connecting modems.

That’s been the situation at Mountain Computer Wizards of Buena Vista, which provides Internet access via chaffee.net to us and hundreds of other people in the region.

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Blame it on the phone company

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Letter from Lisa Dolby

Communications – November 1996 – Colorado Central Magazine

Blame it on the Phone Company

Editors:

I can tell right now, this whole thing involving U.S. West [its less-than-stellar service in the hinterlands] is just another right-wing corporate scheme. First, U.S. West is succeeding in undermining rural telecommunications competition by holding out on installing lines in rural areas while they are still rural areas.

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Out here on the Information Cowpath

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Column by Hal Walter

Communications – March 1996 – Colorado Central Magazine

I was dragged kicking and screaming into the cyber age by magazine editors who wished me to deliver my articles to their e-mail addresses (among them, I hate to say, the honchos at this very publication).

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It’s fun to be wired, but where does it lead?

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Essay by Ed Quillen

Communications – December 1995 – Colorado Central Magazine

For the past year or so, I felt as though I lived on Saturn every time I picked up a newspaper or magazine. There was all this breathless prose about the wonders of the Internet (Hypertext! World Wide Web! Net Surfing! Lurid Pictures Useful to Campaigning Republicans!) and here I was in Salida, where it was about as convenient to surf an ocean as to surf the Internet.

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Telephone service cheaper on the moon?

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Brief by Central Staff

Communications – September 1995 – Colorado Central Magazine

Connie Butler, who lives three miles from Jefferson, wrote a letter to the Fairplay Flume, observing that “I applied for US West telephone service two years ago March, and I still have no phone. I have signed three contracts with them, received a work order number, a telephone number, but I still do not have a phone.”

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New phone prefixes appear

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Brief by Central Staff

Communications – September 1995 – Colorado Central Magazine

They’ve got the numbers, anyway

In the big picture, America is running out of toll-free 800 numbers, so soon there will be another toll-free prefix: 888.

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New area code

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Brief by Central Staff

Communications – May 1995 – Colorado Central Magazine

GUNNISON — Parts of Central Colorado got a new area code as of April 2 as the phone companies adjust to increasing demand for phone lines.

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Public radio prepares to cut back

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Article by Ed Quillen

Communication – March 1995 – Colorado Central Magazine

Now that we’ve got some committed budget-cutters holding the purse strings in Washington, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting may be eliminated, and the result could be less diversity on local radio dials.

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