Bell Ringer April 2016Volume 49, No 12 Clear Lake, South Dakota 57226

These days everywhere you look, there is another promotion, a better offer, or someone new trying to entice you to buy their products and services. How do you know if you’ve selected the best provider? Do you know if you got the best deal or just the deal-of-the-day? How can you be sure?

ITC promotes their products and services just as most companies do. The big difference with ITC is the service you get from start to finish. The price we offer our new customers is the price we offer members who have been with us for years. We don’t offer introductory pricing that can double once your annual contract is over. Having good relationships with our members is important. Because good relationships are built on trust, we want you to trust that we are not going to sell you anything you don’t need. We also want you to trust that we will do everything we can to provide you with reliable service. We want you to have a great experience with our service!

If you should have a problem, we will take care of you. We offer a 24/7 Help Desk service. You will be able to talk to a live person. You won’t be walked through a series of steps on an automated system that allows you no options to get “real” help.

What does it mean to have service from a cooperative? Check our mission statement to the left and you will see that we hope to exceed your expectations. Having a membership with your local cooperative has its benefits. You have ownership; you have a vote. You have representation by your local Board of Directors, and you share in the profits in the form of capital credits. When you support your coop, you also help to build and maintain quality telecommunications for your communities.

ITC is community focused and provides support for local clubs and organizations. We work together with our members to keep our local communities strong, after all, we live and work there too. Your support and our combined partnership make all of this possible. Next time you are faced with choosing a provider for your telecommunications services, we would like you to choose ITC. We are YOUR Coop, and we are here to serve you. Life runs better on ITC!

ITC In Partnership With You!

ITC’s Jim Canaan hands out cash to a member/winner at the Annual Meeting

“Life Runs Better on ITC”

Your Opinion MattersFill out the survey for a chance to win one of two iPad Minis!

Our mission is to profitably achieve a service quality through cost effectiveness that meet or exceeds m e m b e r s h i p ’ s expecta t ions, yet better than the best offered by competitors; and to offer total telecommunications serv ices that are i n n o v a t i v e a n d competitive.

Mission Statement

In the bill you recieve the end of April, there will be a short survey. We are asking our members to take the survey and return it. All returned surveys will be entered to win one of two iPad Minis! You can return the survey with your bill, or you can drop it off. E-Statement customers can return their surveys via email at survey@itctel.com or print and return them in the mail.

The survey contains questions about your radio preferences. It also includes questions regarding your level of satisfaction with our Internet and TV. At the bottom of the survey, you have the opportunity to tell us what new products or services you would like to see ITC offer in the future.

Information we get from the surveys will help us to make better decisions and improvements for our Coop in the future. Survey information is for ITC use only. Call 1.800.417.8667 if you have any questions. Our goal is to provide the best products and services we can offer. Thank you for taking the time to fill out the survey. We appreciate your input!

“This month, I would like to share an article that was recently written about ITC. It was highlighted in an SDN Communications newsletter and blog. ITC is a member company of SDN (https://sdncommunications.com.). The article was written for SDN by Robb Swenson.”

Simple, Honest, Clear

By Jerry Heiberger, General Manager

Call B4 You Dig!

312 Fourth St W PO Box 920

Clear Lake, SD 57226-0920http://itc-web.com

1-800-417-8667

* Published monthly for $.25 * Periodicals postage paid at Clear Lake, SD

Bell Ringer

Postmaster: Send address changes to:

Interstate Telecommunications Cooperative, Inc.

P.O. Box 920Clear Lake, SD 57226-0920

(USPS # 155-720)

Kathy Weitala, Editor

If you are p l a n n i n g on doing any home

improvements this spring or summer, call 811 first! Calling 811 will get your underground utility lines marked for free. If you hit a utility line, it could harm someone or result in fines.

This South Dakota One Call System is for excavators to notify utility companies of their intent to dig. When you call 811, the SD One Call System notifies utility companies with buried lines in the area. The utility companies have 48 hours to mark their lines. Do not start digging until 48 hours have passed. If the utility company doesn’t respond, please call the SD One Call System again. The utility companies will only mark lines that they own. Private lines need to be marked by a private locating firm and are your responsibility. For Minnesota, call 811 or 1.800.252.1166.

Interstate Telecommunications Cooperative Inc.’s service area includes some of South Dakota and Minnesota’s most interesting geographic features.

The market area served by the co-op based in Clear Lake, S.D., weaves around many of northeastern South Dakota’s prairie lakes and extends south roughly along Coteau des Prairies, an East River plateau. The rise in the flatlands juts into western Minnesota, where it’s known as Buffalo Ridge and a good location for wind farms.

ITC’s turf has produced an interesting mix of people, including journalist Tom Brokaw, the late Vice President Hubert Humphrey, professional wrestler Brock Lesnar and U.S. Rep. Kristi Noem.

General Manager Jerry Heiberger is particularly proud of how ITC has grown and evolved over the years to serve a predominantly rural area with top-line telecommunications services.

“We’re trying to expand the footprint and the benefits of being a co-op to as many people as we can in this region of the state,” he says.

Heiberger is also proud that ITC is one of SDN Communications’ 17 member-owner companies in South Dakota. SDN is the premier supplier of broadband connectivity and related telecommunications services to businesses in the Sioux Falls area. SDN also helps member companies such as ITC serve their residential and business customers.

“It’s a great partnership,” Heiberger says. “SDN has opened so many doors for companies like ITC and allowed us to offer our customers new and better services.”

ITC provides customers with a range of Internet, telephone and cable TV services. It also provides some wireless service and is beginning to offer home-automation and remote-monitoring services. About 70 percent of its market is connected with fiber to the home.

“We want to reach 100 percent within the next five or six years,so that all of the members of the co-op can receive the benefits of improved connectivity,” Heiberger says.

He’s worked for ITC or one of its predecessor organizations since 1980. He became general manager in 2002 and has helped guide the co-op through a period of significant change. He plans to retire at the end of 2016.

For more than 60 years, the co-op has had the good fortune to be aligned with people, including board members, who had a vision for the future, Heiberger says. Current board members include Penny Krause of Lake Benton, Minn., who two years ago became the first female board president of a telecommunications cooperative in South Dakota.

The co-op has an eventful history. The ITC name came into use in 1988, when the Brookings Lake Telephone Company and Deuel Telephone Cooperative Association Inc. merged. Operationally, the company’s roots trace back to 1953, when Brookings Lake Telephone got started.

Today, the co-op has 70 employees. Its 4,200-square-mile service area includes parts or all of 12 counties in South Dakota and four in Minnesota. Among the 40 communities it serves are Webster, Clark and Clear Lake. It serves the rural Brookings area.

ITC has 30 exchanges and between 13,600 and 14,000 access lines, depending on the time of the year. The number of active lines fluctuates largely because of the large number of summer homes at lakes.

“Because we live and work in our communities, no one knows our customers better than we do,” Heiberger says. “Not only can we call most by name, but many times we know what services they have and how they use them. Our customers are our friends and neighbors; we’ve built relationships with them.”

The co-op doubled in size in the mid-1990s when it purchased some US West service areas and then brought the new customers into membership of the co-op. It also earned a spot in state telecommunications history in 1996 by becoming the first commercial Internet provider in South Dakota.

~Continued next page~

ITC would like you to meet Shari Koenig. Shari works in Accounting Services at our office in Clear Lake, South Dakota. She grew up in Hendricks, Minnesota, and currently calls Toronto, SD, home.

Shari attended Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She graduated with a Business Administration degree.

A work day for Shari includes numerous tasks. She orders everything from bolts to network equipment. She also does the billing for customer purchases from ITC. Taking care of inventory is a big part of her daily duties as well. She tracks all the incoming and outgoing items.

While many of the employees at ITC focus on the member customers, Shari’s focus is seeing that the employees have the equipment they need to do their jobs. She also works with a number of vendors and has built some good, long-term relationships. Shari says, “I know our vendors by name, and when I call to order something, they know who I am. I like that!”

One of ITC’s services that Shari and her family particularly likes is WHDVR. “We can record shows and watch them on any of our TVs. This is great because we are never home,” says Shari.

As for the Coop and its benefits, Shari says the best part is having ownership. Because she has lived and worked in the ITC territory most of her life, she truly understands the value of having ownership and a “say” in a Cooperative.

What little free time Shari has is spent going to her daughters activities. The three girls keep Shari and husband Jim pretty busy. She also teaches Sunday school.

One thing you might not know about Shari is that she is the youngest of seven kids. The next time you see her, ask her what it is like to be the baby of the bunch!

Simple, Honest, Clear

By Jerry Heiberger, General Manager

By Holly Stormo,

Marketing Communications Specialist

CooperativelySpeaking

By Holly Stormo

Marketing

Communications

Specialist

Video on DemandCheck it out!

You may have noticed a new feature available on your TV called Video on Demand (VOD). This service is available to all members who subscribe to ITC’s Best Seat Digital TV.

VOD is an in teract ive technology that allows you to watch movies and programs when you choose. You can pause, fast-forward or rewind programs just like you would with your DVR.

For instructions on how to rent a VOD movie, look for the Video

on Demand b u t t o n o n your remote ( s e e t h e pics). Once you press the

button, you will find a number of options. The best thing to do is play around to get familiar with it. T h e r e a r e f r e e programs as well as paid ones.

You can also go to our website at www.itc-web.com and click the “Video On Demand” button at the bottom of the screen and choose your remote.

Enjoy a whole new selection of movies and events right from your living room!

It’s not too late to sign up for Pinterest classes with ITC University for April. Call ITC to sign up!

~Continued from page two~The co-op also is unique in that it owns a competitive local exchange carrier, or CLEC, in Milbank. A

CLEC is a carrier that competes against an established local carrier, or ILEC, which stands for incumbent local exchange carrier.

Challenges for the future include keeping up with constant changes in technology and dealing with the uncertainties of government regulation at the federal level, Heiberger says.

Opportunities are likely to center on new services provided to homes and businesses through broadband connectivity, he says. Home-automation and remote-monitoring products and services are examples.

Learn more about the co-op on the ITC website. You can also get to know SDN’s members better through this collection of member profile blogs.

ITC provides access to the ITC network based on the customer purchase of dial tone services. This

purchase of dial-tone makes possible the use of federal dollars that support Universal Service—a government program that has historically made it possible to provide telephone services even to

customers who lived in remote, hard to serve, and expensive to serve locations. The income ITC receives from Universal Service funding far exceeds what the customer pays for the

dial-tone he has purchased. This combination of dollars pays for the ITC network. TV and data services are delivered on the same network, and pay their fair share for the use of the network, but

by themselves, do not allow ITC to access Universal Service funding. The combination of all dollars is needed to pay for the network ITC has built and continues to build.

We South Dakotans live in the high-cost areas this program was designed to help. FCC efforts to move this support away from voice services and to broadband services is happening, but slowly. ITC supports this transition, realizing it is in the best interests of our customers. We’ll keep you posted!

Bills are mailed on the first of each month, and payment is due on the 19th of that month, unless otherwise indicated on the “Due Date” portion of your statement. Prompt payment is required. NO PAYMENT ARRANGEMENTS WILL BE GRANTED.

586, 629, 693, 794,795, 826, 832, 873,874, 876.May 12 --------------------- Disconnect dayfor the following prefixes: 345, 432, 438, 532, 623, 625, 628, 676, 756, 758, 783, 784, 785, 793, 947.

When sending payment to ITC , customers should return the TOP portion of the bill that says, “PLEASE TEAR ALONG PERFORATION AND REMIT WITH PAYMENT.”

Remit Top Portion Of Bill With Payment

Important Dates

Mar 31 -------------------Bills mailed from ITCApr 19 --------------------------Payment dueApr 19 ------------------ Final notices mailedMay 10 ----------------------Disconnect dayfor the following prefixes: 272, 275, 277, 368, 479, 483, 489, 542, 548,

Periodical Postage Paid At Clear Lake, South Dakota 57226

Over the past several months, ITC technicians have been busy working on an updated version of our WebMail interface. This new version of WebMail is a very powerful, feature-rich utility that is loaded with many newly updated components and options. These new features allow users a convenient way to send, receive, and read their messages.

For those of you who are not familiar with our WebMail service, it is a web-based e-mail interface. ITC provides WebMail as an option for our e-mail customers to access their ITC e-mail accounts, Those who already utilize the service can likely attest to the advantages of using a WebMail client for your emailing tasks. One of these advantages includes the fact that WebMail is accessible via any Internet browser. There’s no need to configure additional software (such as Windows Mail, Apple Mail, or Outlook) to administer your emailing tasks. It also affords its users the added benefit of accessing the exact same interface from anywhere, no matter what device they’re using at the time.

Whether you’re already a frequent user of our WebMail application or someone that is interested in looking into it for the first time, I’d like to take this opportunity to point out some of the enhanced features and upgrades this new version has to offer:- Three-pane format with view pane (newer, modernized look and feel)- Mobile interface available which allows it to be fully compatible with smartphones and tablets- Major security updates that contribute to providing an overall improved user experience- Increased display options, allowing it to be more customizable for each individual user- Enhanced organization and search elements; such as whitelist and blacklist filter rules, folder manipulation, searching for past messages or email acquaintances, etc.

For you first-time users, feel free to try out this offering. The link can be found at https://webmail.itctel.com. If you’re already an established user of ITC’s WebMail, we hope you enjoy the new interface and find it very user-friendly.

Regardless, if you run into a scenario in which you need assistance while using this new interface, there are several resources available to help answer your questions. The first option is found within the interface itself. We’ve implemented a “Questions?” link which will allow you to email a question or comment to a group of technicians who will be able to assist you. The next option can be found online. We have put together a detailed instruction manual that highlights many of the common procedures performed by users. The manual can be found by navigating to https://webmail.itctel.com/WebMail_User_Guide.pdf. As with any Internet-related question, you are always free to consult with a technician from our helpdesk, 24/7, at 1-888-217-5718.

(P.S.) One last thing I would like to add is a BIG thank you to those who were kind enough to participate in helping us test this new interface before we moved it into production. Your feedback was invaluable. We sincerely appreciate your assistance!

Join us on Facebook!facebook.com/itccoop

Follow us on Twitter!@itc_coop

Internet 911

By Lonny Dockendorf, Internet Systems Technician

Effective June 1, 2016 Coop members will see a $.50 per month increase in their dial-tone rate. There will also be a $.50 per month increase in the ARC (Access Recovery Charge) fee on July 1, These increases bring this total to $20.50 per month. Milbank customers do not pay ARC fees but will see a $1.00 increase in their dial-tone rate on June 1, 2016. This brings their total to $20.50 per month as well.