Big River Telephone

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Big River Telephone Company, LLC is a full-service telecommunications company
located in the Midwestern United States. Big River provides local, long distance,
Internet, DSL, VoIP and advanced networking and data services. Big River Telephone
is classified as a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) and is a wholesale
digital provider of voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services to the cable
industry.
Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Customer service
3 Awards and recognition
4 Big River digital telephone services
5 Telecommunications networking
6 Web interface technologies
7 Operations Support Systems
8 Current projects
9 External links
10 Notes
History[edit]
Big River Telephone began in 1984 as LDD, Inc. LDD was primarily a long distance
telephone service provider until The Telecommunications Act of 1996 opened the
communication market. After this, LDD started competing for local telephone
service.

Big River Telephone Corporate Headquarters

In 2001, independent investors acquired the assets of LDD, Inc.[1] The former LDD
image was phased out and the company took a new look and approach to the
telecommunication industry as Big River Telephone Company, LLC. Over the next
several years, Big River Telephone acquired several small local Internet service
providers, including one of the leading ISPs in the area, Clas.net.[2] Big River
also acquired Cascade.net[3] in 2005 and Atprs.net[4] in 2008.
Big River Telephones service platform took a technological leap after their Voice
over Internet Protocol local switching network was established in 2004. This new
approach allowed Big River Telephone to deliver regular telephone service with
enhanced features as well as high speed Internet and other advanced data services
to small businesses and residential customers.[5] The completion of the VoIP local
switching network assisted in the implementation of a new product called Integrated
Communications Exchange (ICE). The ICE technology combines high-speed data with
voice signals over the same connection minimizing the number of wired connections.
Big River Telephone is providing VoIP services to cable providers across the United
States.

Traditional Telecommunications Sales coverage area

Customer service[edit]
One of the backbones of Big River Telephones has customer relationship management
(CRM) software from The Sage Group.[6]
Awards and recognition[edit]
The Gartner Group presented Big River Telephone with the Customer Relationship
Management (CRM) Excellence Award for Big Rivers implementation of successful
customer experience and corporate philosophy.[7] CIO Decisions named Big River
Telephone one of the top 10 companies in the United States for customer focus.[8]
Big River Telephone has also received recognition from 1 to 1 Magazine as one of
the top 13 Customer Champion organizations.[9]
Big River digital telephone services[edit]
Big River Telephone has partnered with cable companies.

Digital Telephone coverage map. Dark Green areas represent active markets and light
green areas represent emerging markets.
This technology allows cable companies to offer their subscribers the triple play
bundle of video, data and voice service. Big River Telephone provides cable
operators the ability to add full-featured residential and business telephony
services to their existing customer base quickly and efficiently. Big River
Telephone provides back-office platform support, network connectivity for voice
traffic, support for operations and marketing and technical support. Currently Big
River Telephone is providing back-office support and service to cable operations in
Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Minnesota, Arkansas,
Pennsylvania, Kansas, Texas, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Colorado,
Nebraska, Indiana, and Georgia.
Telecommunications networking[edit]
Big River Telephone Company operates a network of class 4 and class 5 switches. To
ensure reliability and security, Big River has implemented Class 5 VoIP switching
technologies by MetaSwitch. With the deployment of MetaSwitch equipment on their
network, Big River is able to deliver the advantages of VoIP technology directly to
the end user. The implementation of the MetaSwitch allows Big River the opportunity
to streamline its existing operations and to expand its innovative services
including VoIP from a single platform.[5] This technology is the core of delivering
dial tone, connecting calls, providing call features, and routing calls for Big
River Telephone Company. The Big River telephone and MetaSwitch relationship is an
active public partnership program that is engineering focused to ensure that both
companies can co-operatively work together on any interoperability matters.[10]

This article contains content that is written like an advertisement. Please help
improve it by removing promotional content and inappropriate external links, and by
adding encyclopedic content written from a neutral point of view. (October 2013)
(Learn how and when to remove this template message)
Web interface technologies[edit]
Big River Telephone has internally developed web applications available to the
public via Big Rivers teleconferencing and voicemail products.
Big Rivers on-demand, web enabled teleconferencing interface allows customer
control of all features traditionally unavailable to the public. Big Rivers web-
enabled voicemail allows customer control and management via a secure website.
By using Voice over Internet Protocol technology, Big Rivers Teleconferencing and
Voicemail systems are fully digital and compatible with all modern telephone
systems.
Big River Telephone is currently utilizing new media to disseminate information
internally and externally. Big River Telephone has made itself accessible worldwide
through Facebook,[11] YouTube[12] and Twitter.[13]
Operations Support Systems[edit]
Big River Telephones operations support systems (OSS) handles a full range of
telecommunication services including number portability, E911, directory
assistance,[14] operator services, voice mail, and a complete billing solution that
includes call detail reporting and taxing.
Current projects[edit]
Big River Telephone is actively working to provide Advanced Wireless Services, also
known as AWS-1, a wireless telecommunications spectrum band used for mobile voice,
data services, video, and messaging. AWS-1 is used in the United States and
replaces the spectrum formerly allocated to Multipoint Multichannel Distribution
Service, sometimes referred to as wireless cable.[15] The FCC has divided the
spectrum into hundreds of rural licensesrather than a handful of licenses that
span large geographic areasmaking it easier for smaller providers in remote cities
and towns to bid. Big River Telephone Company acquired a band on the federal
license Advanced Wireless Spectrum in 2007 with the intention of serving the
counties where the majority of their customers are. Those counties are Bollinger,
Cape Girardeau, Madison, Perry, St. Francois, Ste. Genevieve, Washington and Wayne.
On August 4, 2010, Big River Telephone was announced as the recipient of $24.4
million in American Reinvestment and Recovery Act funding to extend high-speed
Internet service to seven Missouri counties in southeast Missouri.[16] The counties
to be served are Bollinger, Cape Girardeau, Madison, Perry, St. Francois, Ste.
Genevieve and Washington counties. The network deployment, which will provide
access to 44,697 households and 7,511 businesses, was applauded by Governor Jay
Nixon, who on August 5, visited the company to hold a press conference announcing
the funding.[17] Big River expects to add 75 people when work on the broadband
build out is complete.