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📞 309-596-2222 to check availability for your home or business HISTORY OF VIOLA HOME TELEPHONE COMPANY
Telephone service was first established in the Viola area around the turn of the century. Patrons on the party lines installed and kept their lines in working order. The first phones were the large wall type with batteries installed in a box beneath the extended arm of the mouthpiece. In 1910, the switchboard was moved to a five-room frame building which, also, housed the switchboard operator. The system was called Viola Mutual Exchange. The operators from 1910 to l964 were: Mr. & Mrs. Will David, Mae Fell, Mr. & Mrs. Clyde Drake, and Mrs. In 1956, the system was incorporated as a not-for-profit company named the Viola Telephone Company. In l961, it was reorganized as a corporation and shares were issued. It was renamed Viola Home Telephone Company. The officers and shareholders were: Harry R. Peterson, Pres.; Edgar Robbins, vice-president; Carl Bloom, sec.-treas.; Ellsworth McClure; and Edwin Smith. The company switched from an operator-manned switchboard to a dial system on December 18, l964. The dial equipment and materials were purchased from Automatic Electric. Coinciding with the new switch installation, a new central office was established in a building directly behind the house where the old switchboard had been located. In February 1968, the company installed Automatic Electric ANI equipment. Throughout the year, all lines were converted to single party private lines. The company constructed an additional board room and added central office space to the existing structure in September 1973. In 1989, a new Northern Telecom DMS-10 switch was installed to provide digital switching for local service. The company constructed a fiber optic toll route through its territory to connect with Illinois Bell Telephone Company. In August of l990, the company established a subsidiary, Viola Home Cellular Co., to handle all cellular business concerns. The company had signed a partnership agreement with 14 other companies in l988 to provide cellular service. In 1993, equal access for long distance service was implemented. This provided customers a choice in what long distance service they wished to have. We, also, installed SS7 into our switch. This provided our subscriber with the option to have Caller ID and other CLASS features.
9-1-1 emergency service was activated in Mercer County in July of 1994. Internet service was provided to Viola residents in August 1995. Viola Home Telephone Co. joined with 7 independent telephone companies in Western Illinois to form a new limited liability company named WINS for internet service. In 1996, New Windsor Telephone Co., Viola Home Telephone Co., and Woodhull Community Telephone Co. formed a company called “TRIO” Tri Rural Independent Operations. TRIO was developed to handle their own long distance service for their customers. We now have our own CIC code for TRIO. DSL(Digital Subscriber Line) service was offered to subscribers in 2002. This provided a high speed internet connection over the local loop facilities. Customers are now able to have phone service and internet service on the same cable pair. Both services can be utilized at the same time. In 2005, Viola Communications, a subsidiary of Viola Home Telephone Co., began providing video service to Viola residents over the existing phone line. The service provided a digital video service offering over 80 channels plus 40 music channels. In the coming future, they hope to expand the service to all of the rural subscribers. In 2006, Viola Home Telephone Co. began providing wireless internet service to the surrounding rural areas of Alexis, Aledo, Matherville, Preemption, and Sherrard. One large antenna was erected on the Aledo Farmers Grain & Coal, Gochee grain bin on the Sherrard blacktop, and the water tower in Viola. A new softswitch was purchased from Metaswitch in 2010. It replaced the 20 year old DMS-10 Nortel switch. The new switch is more in sync with the present technology. Communications business has evolved into a data based system rather than a voice based system. In 2011, we celebrated our 50th Anniversary of incorporation. The telephone company is constantly looking for new ventures. Hopefully, we will be ready to face the ever changing era in today’s technology.
