Utilities - Communication Services
UTILITY PROFILES & RATE COMPARISONS
Communication Services
Nine companies in St. Joseph County, Indiana provide a full-range of
state-of-the-art telephone and telecommunications services. Local services
are available through four companies, including SBC/Ameritech and MCI.
Point of presence long-distance and associated services are extended to
the county through eight different companies, including Quest, Sprint
and Verizon.
SBC/Ameritech serves to the urban regions and major industrial/commercial
areas of the county as well eight of the nine largest cities in Indiana.
Despite upgrading systems to state-of-the-art telecommunications technology,
SBC/Ameritech has not increased its local service rates in Indiana since
1986. In fact, SBC/Ameritech provides the county with a level of technology
that is comparable to major metropolitan areas throughout the world.
Because of the aggregation of east-west fibers that occurs as these systems
move below Lake Michigan, St. Joseph County, Indiana finds itself with
what is perhaps the greatest presence of long haul fiberoptic routes in
the U.S. *Data gathered in October 2000 showed that the following terrestrial
carriers had a presence in St. Joseph County, Indiana:
| • AEP
Communication
• AT&T
• Broadwing
(IXC)
• Enron
• Electric
Lightwave |
• Norlight
•
PF.Net
• Qwest
• Sprint
• Touch
America |
* Many of the facilities listed in
this paragraph may be currently under different ownership.
A joint local business, government, and educational effort, currently
known as the Metro Net Initiative, is presently under way in St. Joseph
County, Indiana. It is the goal of this initiative that a carrier-neutral
fiberoptic network be established allowing, major users direct access
to multiple national vendors of broadband services.
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