Cable, Internet Provider Wants to Offer Phone Service in Belle Plaine
Posted on: Friday, 28 January 2005, 00:00 CST
Jan. 28--It looks as though Belle Plaine will get a choice of local and long-distance telephone carriers this summer.
Clearwater-based SKT Inc. has asked the Kansas Corporation Commission for the authority to offer the service and hopes to start by this summer.
SKT has provided cable television service to Belle Plaine since 1982 and offers Internet service as well.
"We believe that Belle Plaine provides an opportunity for us to grow our company in an area where we already have facilities available," said Roger Bales, general manager of Southern Kansas Telephone Co., which is the parent company of SKT. "There hasn't been a competitive environment for telephone service in the past."
Sprint Corp. is the only local telephone service provider in Belle Plaine, but Bales said he knew of other smaller companies like his that had sought authority to operate there.
SKT has 7,000 customers in Kansas and Nebraska.
Bales said SKT hadn't offered phone service in Belle Plaine in the past because "there are a lot of conditions that have to exist in order for you to provide local service over a cable . . . television system. Only recently technology evolved to make it possible."
Bales said the company wouldn't need a lot of additional capital because it already had cable operations there.
Belle Plaine City Clerk Tami McCammon thinks more than one telephone carrier would be great for residents.
"They'd be glad to have the choice," she said.
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FON,
Source: The Wichita Eagle (Wichita, Kan.)
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