The future will be faster at WTRT
Two incumbent directors were elected to new three-year terms during the 65th annual membership meeting of West Texas Rural Telephone Cooperative on March 26th at the Hereford Bull Barn. Brent Carlson, Milo Center/Westway, and Lance McClaran, Tharp, were re-elected by acclamation during the business portion of the annual meeting. Both were unopposed. A spokesman for Bolinger, Segars, Gilbert and Moss, LLP presented a financial report on the status of the cooperative’s operations. Door prizes were given away at the end of the program.
Employees of WTRT and WT Services were presented tenure awards recognizing a cumulative 160 years of service. WTRT employees recognized for a cumulative total of 85 years of service were Farrin McPherson, warehouseman, 40 years; Keith Hacker, central office supervisor, 35 years; and Stephanie Alonzo, supervisor, operations center, and Alonso Ibarra, construction team, five years each.
WT Services, Inc. tenure awards amounting to a cumulative 75 years went to Cindy Carroll, accounts payable clerk, 25 years; Doug Baker, radio shop manager, 20 years; Doug Buie, radio systems Amarillo, 20 years, and Annette Loflin, customer care manager for WT Services Friona/Bovina, 10 years.
Amy Linzey, Chief Executive Officer and General Manager, commented on overall operations of the Cooperative and what is in store for the future.
“I recently celebrated my seventh anniversary since joining WTRT in February 2012. I am reminded of how far we have come. Since my arrival, we have focused our resources spending more than $20 million on fiber, electronics, switches, equipment, vehicles, and tools. This has been accomplished without further encumbering our cooperative with debt, while paying off loans, maintaining our cash flow and meeting the growth of our company,” she said.
“We now have fiber installed in each exchange, with several exchanges completed. Oklahoma Lane and Frio are complete. Milo Center will be completed this year and the Dawn exchange is almost complete. In 2019, we will have installed over 400 miles of fiber. We have approximately 400 miles remaining, and we intend to complete this in two years, not ten. This is a daunting amount of work to complete in two years, but it has become necessary, because of competition and to serve you with the bandwidth you need,” she added.
“We have upgraded our network with state-of-the-art technologies that will serve our Cooperative for decades to come. We have installed a Barracuda system—which filters spam out of our network. We conducted a Cyber Security audit and contracted for on-going monitoring. We have upgraded the main switch in Hereford which was end of life. We are installing a new switch to replace the existing switch in our Friona Office which is end of life, and will be fully redundant to the switch in Hereford. We installed a Denial of Service Server to prevent cyber-attacks,” she said.
“We have augmented the original 4 fiber that transits through our service area to Amarillo, with Dense Wave Division Multiplexing technology that fractionalizes the light over the fiber, expanding our capacity exponentially. We won’t need to augment this fiber in our lifetime.
“We have added redundant routes from our network to the world and connected our networks to neighboring telephone cooperatives to allow for additional redundancy. We are connected to the major ISPs in Seattle, Denver, and Dallas. If one of these routes becomes compromised, the network will automatically switch to another location – often without your being aware.
“We have upgraded the IPTV system in Hereford, allowing us to offer our members our state-of-the-art video system where we have completed the fiber installation. And, we have upgraded our email servers,” she added.
Ms. Linzey said to serve WTRT members well, facilities needed upgrading from old copper-based technology with fiber optic cable. “Fiber Optic technology is the only technology that will allow us to bring the services of the future to our members. We are building a network that will serve us for decades to come with technological advances in the future,” she said. The next eight years will see numerous technological advances.
“I have spoken in the past about the importance of the Universal Service Fund to WTRT and companies like us. WTRT serves a 2,300 square mile area that has less than one person per square mile. Without USF, cooperatives like WTRT would be hard pressed to maintain their networks,” Ms. Linzey said.
“One common factor in all these advances is the availability of broadband internet. The $20 million investment in our network would not have been possible without the Universal Service Fund. We have been granted an additional $2.6 Million annually for 10-year period to get fiber optic cable and associated electronics in our network and meet or exceed the bandwidth targets set for us by the FCC. Without USF, the overall economy of these areas would be compromised. The people who reside in Rural America deserve to have broadband internet. The availability of broadband internet allows these individuals to develop businesses and stimulate the economy,” she said.
“In keeping with our mission statement, we don’t sit on our laurels, We search for new services while continuing to improve our existing services. We are an authorized Motorola Dealer and offer Two-way Radio Sales and Service. Cell phones may be prohibited in major cities, but two way radios are not. We sell, install and maintain Telephone Systems. We install and maintain security cameras, sensors, and other monitoring devices. We now offer managed WIFI services with our WIFI Wizard. Our WIFI Wizard will cover your entire home or office. We use one at our HQ building. We provide traditional voice telephone service, long distance and international services. If you need ethernet connectivity to a distant location, we can assist you. We provide Enhanced 911 service where in an emergency, your address identifies to the 911 representative even if you can’t speak,” she said.
Annette Loflin, Customer Care Manager for
WT Services, Friona/Bovina, 10 years of service
