Nex-Tech Blog | Technology Tips and Tricks | Industry News

It was the summer of 1974 when my parents packed up my younger brother, sister and I and moved to my dad’s family farm.  It was a well-established, smaller farm and ranch, but grandpa had to retire and needed someone to take it over.  Dad was a mechanic for many years with the gas company.  His skills and “I can fix it” attitude just made sense that we would move.

I sometimes refer to my role within Nex-Tech as a firefighter.  We all have those days where we feel like a firefighter, working from one issue to another putting out fires.  Don’t get me wrong, these aren’t always fires, but issues customers may have that I can assist them with.

It was nearly 20 years ago and I had just started with Nex-Tech, or at that time Rural Telephone Service.  While touring one of our central offices, I was introduced to Ed.  Ed was a seasoned Central Office Tech that had been with the company for what I believed forever.  With a strong German accent, he told stories of “back in da day”.

If you’re like most independent telephone companies investing to deliver bigger and better broadband services, you may also be seeing special access revenue slowly replaced with Virtual Private Network Service (VPNs) over Internet, or even point to point wireless service.  This has been a common challenge within the industry, as many cost recovery Telco’s only have Interstate Tariff’s and investing into their networks may be driving rates higher.  As these rates climb, it pushes IT personnel from local banks, hospitals and businesses to give up their reliable T1 or Ethernet Transport Services (ETS) to less expensive VPN over Internet service.

You completed your CALEA System Security & Integrity (SSI) plan in 2007 and if you’re like most, it would take some time to find a copy.  You are also trying to think of your CALEA Trusted Third Party (TTP) you hope you never have to call.  To find out, you call Accounting to see who the monthly check goes to in hopes they can provide you some guidance.