acct069@uunet.uu.net> (05/27/91)
[taken from the Sunday {Milwaukee Journal} (5/26/91)]
Tomah
{Old Phone Museum Being Cranked Up}
Calling all phone-a-philes: Some Wisconsin telephone companies
are stringing together a telephone museum in Tomah.
It will be called the _Harris G. Allen Telecommunications
Historical Museum_ and is intended to provide a free public tour of
the last century of talking through wires. Allen, who lived from 1900
to 1988, founded the Tomah-based North-West Telecommunications Co. and
is considered a pioneer in the industry.
The 5,400-square-foot building for the museum is being donated
by Pacific Telecom Inc., a company in Vancouver, Wash., that owns both
North-West Telecommunications and Cencom Inc., which operates some
local phone companies in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa.
Ron | Lightning Systems, INC.
acct069@carroll1.cc.edu | (414) 363-4282 60megs
carroll1!acct069@uwm.edu | 14.4k HST/V.32bis bud@uunet.uu.net> (05/29/91)
In article <telecom11.400.8@eecs.nwu.edu> Ron <uwm!carroll1.cc.edu! acct069@uunet.uu.net> writes: > The 5,400-square-foot building for the museum is being donated > by Pacific Telecom Inc., a company in Vancouver, Wash., that owns both > North-West Telecommunications and Cencom Inc., which operates some > local phone companies in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa. Pacific Telecom also bought out the old RCA Alascom system, and is "The Phone Company" in Alaska. Bud Couch - ADC/Kentrox If my employer only knew.. standard BS applies
Floyd Davidson <floyd@ims.alaska.edu> (05/29/91)
In article <telecom11.407.7@eecs.nwu.edu> kentrox!bud@uunet.uu.net (Bud Couch) writes: > In article <telecom11.400.8@eecs.nwu.edu> Ron <uwm!carroll1.cc.edu! > acct069@uunet.uu.net> writes: >> The 5,400-square-foot building for the museum is being donated >> by Pacific Telecom Inc., a company in Vancouver, Wash., that owns both >> North-West Telecommunications and Cencom Inc., which operates some >> local phone companies in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa. > Pacific Telecom also bought out the old RCA Alascom system, and is > "The Phone Company" in Alaska. Pacific Corp. (Portland, Ore.) owns Pacific Telecom (Vancouver, Wn.) which owns Alascom (the regulated long distance carrier), and a large percentage of the privately owned local telco's in Alaska! Telephone Utilities of the Northland, Telephone Utilies of ... I don't remember the names of them all. I believe they also use the TU name in Gig Harbor, WN. and Forks, WN. They own several local telco's in the Northwest. But ... the two largest local phone companies in Alaska are city owned: Anchorage Telephone Utilites, and Fairbanks Municipal Utilities. And there in is an interesting story. When Pacific Telecom bought what is now TU of the Northland, which serves much of the area just east of Fairbanks, the Alaska Public Utilites Commission told them something to the effect of: "Don't buy anymore. (Unless Fairbanks MUS is sold, which we would allow)." Now FMUS, being owned by a city, is not regulated by the PUC. I have no idea why the PUC thought then it would be a good idea if Pacific Telecom should be allowed to buy FMUS but nothing else. (It has not been up for sale; it makes the city too much money!) But that was years ago. In the last two or three years the hot item has been the Anchorage Telephone Utilities sale. The city would like to sell it. A couple years ago they put it up for bid. Pacific Telecom offered the only bid. It required 60% voter approval and got something like 58%; and so failed. In the process Pacific Telecom spent more money on advertising and on political donations in the state of Alaska than any other company for that particular year. (Considering the oil companies we have here, that is some chunk of money.) Now the mayor of Anchorage (Mr. Fink, no less) is trying again. The political fighting has been going hot and heavy. Some would say that PT already owns too much! Some would say they do such a fine job, let's give em more! And everything in between. The proposals in Anchorage for a bidding process have been everything from explicitly banning PT to allowing them to bid only if they sell off their inter-state business (originally the idea was that they would have to sell Alascom, which PT said *NO* thanks to, and lately it has meant they would have to sell off their major ownership of the fiber optic Pacific cable that is just now being put into service. That has not been rejected by PT.) Eventually it is very likely that PT will own the phone system in Anchorage. I don't know if that scares Alascom employees more or ATU employees more. Oh, also ... PT corporate profits last year were a record high. Disclaimer: I work for Alascom under a union contract. Floyd L. Davidson | Alascom, Inc. pays me, |UA Fairbanks Institute of Marine floyd@ims.alaska.edu| but not for opinions. |Science suffers me as a guest.
roy@cs.umn.edu> (05/30/91)
kentrox!bud@uunet.uu.net (Bud Couch) writes: > Pacific Telecom also bought out the old RCA Alascom system, and is > "The Phone Company" in Alaska. One of the biggest, if I remember right. (and if I don't, Floyd will be happy to correct me :-) A couple years ago, Anchorage's mayor wanted to sell the local phone company, and there turned out to be only one bidder ... Pacific Telecom. There was quite a rucus, and the issue was forced to a ballot, where it lost the required margin (60%) but won the popular margin at just over 50%. One of the biggest points made by the opposition was that Pacific Telecom would own some 80% of the state's phone business, if it were to buy the Anchorage Telephone Utility. I used to have a list of the companies owned, but it's fallen into that tame black hole I use for a filing cabinet. Roy M. Silvernail roy%cybrspc@cs.umn.edu cybrspc!roy@cs.umn.edu roy@cybrspc.uucp(maybe!)