First Quarter, 1999
Customer Feedback Helps Solve an Internet MysteryBy Steven G. Sanders
|
Telephone
Tales ... from A new feature of the NATCO News will focus on our customers. NATCO News invites you to share stories about how telecommunications services -- ISDN, Internet, business telephone systems like Centrex, computer data services, video conference, etc., have helped you in your own life. Did the Internet help you find a long-lost friend or relative? Did a new telephone system help you improve your business? Do you work at home now because of ISDN? Was the telephone a lifeline in an emergency? For each issue of the newsletter, NATCO News will select a story from those submitted and award the story-teller a $50 gift certificate good for any NATCO service. Any NATCO customer may enter. We ask that you keep your story to about 500 words and include your address and daytime telephone number where you can be reached. The first deadline for the spring '99 newsletter will be March 20. Mail your "Tales" to NATCO, 301 E. Main, Flippin, AR 72634, marked "Attention: NATCO News." So, don't forget to put sharing your story with NATCO News on your list of early spring things to do. |
Honors for Uninterrupted
|
Betty Barker Smith, Former Newspaper Betty Barker Smith has returned to north Arkansas to join Northern Arkansas Telephone Company as vice president, according to NATCO president and general manager Dr. Steven G. Sanders. Her entry into the telecommunications industry comes upon her retirement from a 20-year newspaper career. Formerly publisher of the Baxter Bulletin newspaper from 1993 to 1997, Smith was promoted from her Mountain Home position to president and publisher of the Wausau Daily Herald at Wausau, Wis., a larger Gannett-owned newspaper property, where she worked 14 months until her retirement.
At NATCO, Smith will be responsible for human resources, accounting, customer service, sales and marketing. She said she is looking forward to this opportunity to work in an evolving industry. "My goal is to structure a culture that truly lives up to the statement - high tech, soft touch. Customers will be our focus," the new vice president stated. Smith was one of the original trustees of the South Shore Foundation, in 1996. The South Shore Foundation is the charitable arm of NATCO, which awards grants to improve educational opportunities and economic development, and to promote environmental preservation and community betterment throughout the 658 square-mile area along the south shore of Bull Shoals Lake. In her new position, Smith will remain a trustee of the South Shore Foundation, coordinating between NATCO and the South Shore Foundation Board. Dr. Sanders said, "Our new vice president in the administrative area, Betty Barker Smith, has the capabilities NATCO requires at this time as we continue to serve a growing number of customers in the South Shore with traditional telephony, ISDN, and Internet, and customers outside the service area with Internet and data services. Betty has served on the South Shore Board of Trustees, demonstrating her professionalism and management skills to all of us who have worked with her in that capacity." A native of Asheboro, N.C., Smith holds a bachelor of science degree in business from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She worked in newspaper advertising positions in both North and South Carolina and spent one year working in Los Angeles. She was classified advertising manager at the Greenville, S.C., News and Piedmont, Wilmington, N.C., Morning Star, and Anderson, S.C., Independent. Smith is the mother of four grown children: one son is an attorney in South Carolina, one daughter is a nurse in Illinois, another daughter is a teacher in North Carolina and another son is a teacher and coach in North Carolina. Smith is a Rotary Club member and enjoys reading and boating in her leisure time. "I'm pleased to be back in the Twin Lakes area," Smith stated in closing. |
Steven Sanders Jr. Becomes Vice President/Plant Manager at NATCO Steven Sanders Jr. has become vice president/plant manager of Northern Arkansas Telephone Company. The announcement was made by Dr. Steven Sanders, president of NATCO.
At NATCO, Sanders will be responsible for inside and outside plant operations and technical services. He has worked with NATCO for 10 years, beginning in 1989 as a construction lineman and continuing in 1993 as a telephone installer and repairman, then manager of external relations in 1995. A Mountain Home High School graduate, he completed his bachelor of science degree in business administration at Arkansas State University in 1994, receiving recognition on both the Dean's List and the President's List. He completed studies for a master of business administration in May of 1997, completing course work at Arkansas State University while working full time. He was inducted into Beta Gamma Sigma National Honor Society in April of 1997. Sanders also attended seminars and obtained continuing education credits within the telephone industry each year since 1992. Topics studied included personnel law, telemanagement, data communications and Local Area Networks, communications, installation and repair, and the GTE TOPS curriculum. Sanders' professional activities include chairing the Small Company Concerns Committee of the Arkansas Telecommunications Association and serving on the Regulatory Committee and Economic & Infrastructure Development Committee of the Arkansas Telecommunications Association. Locally, Sanders has served the Flippin Area Chamber of Commerce as a past president, and is the Chamber's current vice president and a director. Sanders is a member of the Marion County Arkansas E911 Advisory Committee. Sanders said in his new position as plant manager he will be working to continue NATCO's trend to provide the most advanced telecommunications technologies to both its voice and data customers. Dr. Sanders congratulated his son upon meeting the challenges of the positions he has filled in the telephone company. "We will work together as we continue to serve a growing number of customers in the South Shore with traditional telephony, ISDN, and Internet, and customers outside the service area with telephone equipment, Internet, data and cellular services." |
South Shore Foundation Funds Innovative The South Shore Foundation Board of Trustees recently approved funding for a computer-based library to preserve local history - not only historic records, but also images and even sounds. Termed the South Shore Memory Project, it would be one of the few digital libraries of local history in the nation. It would be second only to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., in its ability to provide recorded sounds of the area and its people, according to director Allen C. Benson of Mountain Home.
Anyone in the world would have access to the archive-quality records of the local area once the records are digitized and placed on the Internet. The memory project was proposed by Arkansas State University Mountain Home for funding by the South Shore Foundation whose goals are to use telecommunications equipment to help the communities of the South Shore area. The South Shore Memory Project is to take a year and one-half to complete. Project Director Allen Benson is director of library services at ASU-MH. Benson said the South Shore Memory Project would be a pilot program using leading edge technology. "It has the potential to serve as a model for hundreds of archives, museums, and university special collections in the future." The South Shore Memory Project will be based at the Flippin High School where Petra E. Pershall and Dianne Wade are active participants in the project. They will work closely with faculty and students as the project progresses. South Shore Foundation will provide Flippin High School Library Media Center with equipment to create a barrier-free, inter-networked microcomputer facility and the fireproof cabinet for storing archived records which will be housed in a centralized electronic storage facility at ASU-MH. The public will have access to the Internet-based local history project at either library. Homes, offices, or other schools anywhere with Internet service will be able to access the information contained in the South Shore Memory Project. Benson said the project would create a historical archive that South Shore citizens can come home to electronically, regardless of where they are now living or will live in the future. "We want to make this a prized resource for others to visit that want to explore the history of the South Shore area." The South Shore Foundation is pleased to be able to apply its principles of using telecommunications equipment to assist area communities. It is the largest project to date the Foundation has approved, totaling $24,800. "This is the type of project we in the South Shore Foundation had hoped to contribute to," said Steven G. Sanders, president of the foundation. He added that few residents are aware that the South Shore's telecommunications system is among the most modern in the nation, and that it can support a project of this nature right now. "We are pleased that ASU Mountain Home has the interest and is making the commitment to create this model project for our people." Sanders continued, "As Mr. Benson said, this project will preserve precious records in digital form so the pages won't deteriorate, the photographs won't fade, and best of all, voices of South Shore people will be able to be preserved, whether singing a folk song or telling an oral history." The timetable for the project includes listing historical resources and outlining the structure of the digital library as well as selecting an exhibit to digitize and display on the Internet by March 1999. The access site will be set up in the fall of '99, and final onsite demonstration is to be ready by the spring of 2000. The South Shore Foundation, founded in 1996, is the charitable foundation of the Northern Arkansas Telephone Company. |
Attendance
at World's Largest Internet Show Dr. Steven Sanders, president of Northern Arkansas Telephone Company says NATCO Technologies will be deploying new network management technology for NATCO Net as a direct result of his attendance at the World Internet Show at New York City recently. NATCO Net is the basic Internet service with free local dialup access offered to Internet users in the Mountain Home-Flippin-Yellville area, and to numerous area communities, such as Cotter, Bull Shoals, Lakeview, Pyatt, Diamond City, Omaha and Lead Hill. NATCO Technologies Internet service is available to individuals and businesses regardless of what company provides telephone service to the customer. "We will be deploying other new technology in 1999. I brought back specific information on services which might be offered to our clients in the South Shore and Twin Lakes area," Sanders said. The Fall Internet World Show '98 featured more than 100 workshops and more than 300 technology exhibits by companies located throughout the nation. Of special interest to NATCO Technologies, Sanders said, were workshops and technology about providing high-quality Web service to customers, technological and security issues for Web-conducted business, and Internet telephony. Exhibitors at the New York City show stressed e-commerce, with discussions of new ways to advertise, sell, and interact with customers. "Visit www.barnesandnoble.com and www.station.sony.com, to view good examples of the best online e-commerce," he said. "Web sites are going to get more interesting with some of the new graphics tools that have been developed. Our Web sites, www.southshore.com and www.natconet.com, will be unveiling some interesting new things shortly." A raft of new products hitting the market will make using the Internet more user-friendly, Sanders said. "In the future, not everyone will need a PC to get their e-mail." |
|
What
in the World is Happening Northern Arkansas Telephone Company was first to offer national ISDN telephone service in the state and continues to research new uses of this economical, high-quality service. ISDN is available to NATCO customers at a monthly residential rate of $17.90, the lowest rate in the nation. ISDN allows multiple uses of one line. Business and residential users may talk on the phone while using the fax or sending data over the same phone line, because it has two channels. ISDN subscription also includes most CLASS services, better quality video conferencing and two lines for the price of one. Eight devices can be attached to one ISDN line. NATCO technicians can wire your home or office if your present wiring is not adequate. The term ISDN stands for integrated services digital network. The network provides user-to-user digital connectivity to support a wide range of voice, audio, video and data services. See www.isdnzone.com (this link no longer active as of 12/17/02). One example of the use of ISDN is video conferencing, which NATCO has demonstrated at company open house events the past several years. NATCO operates a video conference center at its Flippin office, available for $15 per hour (plus toll call) to individuals and businesses. Residential users of ISDN in the NATCO service area tend to choose it because ISDN provides high-speed data transfer, highest quality on-screen computer graphics, use of two channels, and no waiting to display Internet sites. NATCO has nearly five times the rate of ISDN use than the nation as a whole. Worldwide, the United States lags behind Europe in providing ISDN services to customers, followed by Japan. Germany has 66 percent of the world's ISDN lines, while the U.S. has only 18 percent of the world's ISDN lines. The figure in Japan is 13 percent, and the remaining countries of the world have only three percent of the lines. Although the United States and Japan are lagging behind Germany by a large margin, the growth in these countries appears to be increasing rapidly and should be narrowing the gap.
Sixty-one percent of Net users shop online. Popular sites are:
|
|||
| About NATCO | Affiliations
| Services | Employment
| Customer Info | Northern
Arkansas Telephone Company | 301 East Main Street | Flippin, Arkansas,
72634
|
03.03.1999bjm323
