A History of TCT
Tri County Telephone Association, Inc. was formed in 1953 to provide local telephone service to rural Big Horn Basin customers in Burlington, Otto, Emblem, and Hamilton Dome, Wyoming. Telephone service became a reality in 1956 when the first dial tone was available in these areas. Tri County is a rural cooperative made up of four exchanges of Ten Sleep; Hyattville; Burlington/Emblem/Otto; and Hamilton Dome. These local exchanges include a total of about 950 access lines. The Tri County Telephone Association, Inc. corporate office is located at 405 S. 4th Street in Basin, Wyoming.
In October of 1994, Tri County Telephone purchased seven telephone exchanges from US West resulting in a 700% increase in access lines overnight. From that purchase, TCT WEST, INC., a subsidiary of Tri County Telephone, was formed to serve the exchanges of Basin/Manderson, Frannie, Greybull/Shell, Lovell/Byron/Cowley, and Meeteetse. There are approximately 6,000 access lines in the TCT WEST serving area.
With this purchase and the resulting network upgrades, 11 switches were migrated into one central switch. The network serving all exchanges included a digital switch connecting the exchanges via approximately 500 miles of digital fiber optic cable, most of which was installed in 1996. Over 50 serving areas were created as part of the network upgrade. The newly distributed network enabled the early deployment of DSL services for high speed Internet and television services to its customers. As part of the network upgrades a strategic partnership was established with Touch America (now 360networks) which established a POP on the fiber backbone and put Basin, Wyoming on the map as one of the first POPs in the state of Wyoming. This has since evolved, as today TCT is connected to and has access to 360networks with full ring redundancy through Denver, Chicago and Laurel, Montana.
In 1997 a third company, TRI TEL, INC., was formed. This company is a subsidiary of TCT WEST, INC. TRI TEL is a long distance carrier as well as an Internet service provider. Tri County and TCT WEST customers may use TRI TEL long distances services if they choose. In addition, those customers may request toll-free numbers and calling cards provided through TRI TEL long distance. As an Internet service provider, TRI TEL serves areas in the Big Horn Basin other than our local exchange areas. In 1997 toll-free, unlimited Internet access was made available through TRI TEL in Powell, Cody and Thermopolis, Wyoming. In 2003 TCT began offering high speed wireless broadband Internet access in Cody and has since continued to expand the service offering into Ralston, Powell and Garland, Wyoming. Services have also been rolled out in southern Montana from Roberts & Joliet up through Laurel into Billings, and on to Shepherd & Huntley. Services are also available in Hardin and Colstrip and surrounding areas. As part of the wireless Internet expansion TCT has built their own network as well as acquired the networks previously built and operated by Timberline Electronics, Big Horn Wireless and Direct AirNet.
In 2000 TCT began deploying its triple play services of Telephone, HS Internet and Television services. TCT’s early video deployment was based upon an ATM delivery and in 2004 TCT upgraded portions of their head end to make IP video available for its new FTTP deployment in Ten Sleep. With the continued development of the IPTV product, 2008 has brought a new level of television services as DVR is being made available and at the end of 2008 HD programming will be made available to customers on the IP access platform across both Copper DSL and FTTP.
In late 2003, TCT began the installation of the MetaSwitch, an award-winning softswitch which includes enhanced telecom applications, including IP capabilities. With the pressure to decrease the costs of long distance services TCT worked to utilize IP services to improve the efficiency and network resources to lower the customer cost of LD. The MetaSwitch allowed TCT to begin the commercial deployment of IP termination of LD traffic. The MetaSwitch was also used to deploy its newly branded VONtel service in 2005. VONtel is a broadband telephone service (VoIP) and has been successfully deployed to customers with HS Internet. VONtel has been very successful in the competitive areas where TCT’s HS wireless Internet customers finally have a choice other than services provided by the traditional telephone companies.
TCT currently offers High Speed Internet via wireless, copper and all fiber platforms, television packages that include DVR and HD, VoIP services, IT service and support for businesses, phone systems including all VoIP solutions, computer repair services, a partnership with Verizon Wireless for cellular, data storage for business and personal records and oh yes regular old telephone.
TCT is a company that is firmly rooted in customer service, growing up from a co-op where the customer is also the owner and probably your neighbor. TCT provides world wide access to information, entertainment, and communications services for customers right here in our rural communities. TCT has pioneered the way for small rural telephone companies to deliver its customers current technology and is committed to continue to do so.