Telephone service is a must in a rural community. Contractors don't have secretaries to relay messages. They have an answering machine telling you to leave your name and number and they will call you back. This practice is also common for the state and local inspectors. We contacted US West, the service provider in our area, to see what we would have to do to have service connected. The representative told us we had no worries. That they could hang the phone on a tree if that was necessary. Great at last there weren't going to be any problems.
They would tunnel under the road and run the wires to our building site no charge but we must provide a trench from the building site to the road. This required us to dig a trench 3 foot deep a distance of 800 feet more or less. US West said as soon as we had that completed they would install our phone. Midge, my wife, and I almost ran to the local tool rental shop to rent a DITCH WITCH.
The ditch would really serve two purposes. The well head was along the path that the phoneline would take. I talked with the state inspector and he informed me the water pipe, electric lines to the pump and the phone lines could be in the same trench. Off to work I went. A ditch witch moves very slow and is designed so you can either ride or walk along side it. I did both. Eventually we passed the wellhead and made it to the gate. We called US West the next day and informed them we were ready. They scheduled to run the linesand connect our phone in two days. Now that's fast service we thought. There were so many other things more important to do but I stopped them and started the water and electric line to the well head. I was ready now. We stayed on the property the day US West had said they would be here. US West didn't arrive.
The next day I telephoned them again and after some words they rescheduled a 2 weeks later to run their line and connect the telephone. US West had rushed us now they were starting to drag their feet. The two weeks passed and they did arrive to run their line. We didn't have a dwelling to fasten the phone box on so they put it on a stake near the building site. The workers informed us the installer would be here the next day to connect the lines. A week later, after many calls to US West, he showed up. Thats when we learned that there weren't any lines available to connect up. US West had no free lines in this area and we would have to wait until they ran new main lines. I could go on and on about the shoddy service US West provides but if you ever have to deal them you will find out first hand. The PUC was absolutely no help to us. Their concern is for the more profitable areas. The rural areas aren't profitable enough for anyone to care about and the PUC represents just the major cities. Instead of improving our plight we are now being forced to pay a fee so that large population centers like Portland can choose their carrier. We will never have a choice. Suffice it to say it took us over a year to obtain a phone. Deregulation and the breakup of AT&T might sound like a good thing. It isn't and never will be. US West doesn't care about our market. The service is poor and constantly is being degraded. Yes we made the choice NOT to live like sardines in a can. We have no regrets about that at all.
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Moved into FortuneCity
December 4th, 1997
Updated July 9th, 2002