A4 | SATURDAY, JANUARY 28, 2012

BUSINESS

THE MOORESVILLE-DECATUR TIMES

Wireless companies slowly acquiring new territory

By Amy Hillenburg ahillenb@md-times.com
MORGAN COUNTY Kyle Miller of Mooresville was heading back out to work after a lunch break this week, but the 1996 Mooresville High School graduate stopped long enough to say that the wireless communications company he works for, NewWave Communications, is keeping us pretty busy. Just north of Monrovia, in back of the IGA, Precision Data Solutions Wireless in Morgan County has its tower erected, waiting to do a little landscaping around it this spring, according to owner Eric Rogers. NewWave, which is based in Sikeston, Mo., and PDS Wireless are looking for customers and beginning to build out to those whove been without the luxury of highspeed Internet, cable TV or phone service. NewWave Communications bought systems from Comcast, which served parts of Morgan and Hendricks counties. We have taken that network and are upgrading by replacing hard lines, offering high-speed Internet, more television channels and landline phone service. Alcorn said New Wave has no plans for expansion, because this project is the priority for 2012 and hopefully, much of it will be completed this summer. Alcorn, who is vicepresident of sales and marketing out of Indianapolis for NewWave, said technicians are eager to upgrade the Town of Monrovia, but have not wired for it yet. He said officials have been talking to town councilmen and are hoping that they will be able to get service there. NewWave already has high-speed Internet customers in the Homestead Subdivision. NewWave serves Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee and South Carolina, according to its website, with cable television (and premium movie channels), Internet and digital phone service, pay-for-view channels, high definition DVR and Music Choice. There are offices in Brazil and Clinton in Indiana, Alcorn said. Rogers said his company also continues to grow. In just four years, we have 1,000 customers, and our target for the Monrovia tower is to reach 300, he said. This is the first freestanding tower PDS Wireless has put up in Morgan County. The other towers are on tall structures, and one is on a building in Mooresville. Rogers said hes had no complaints on the service, but has had people thanking him for the new service. Customers can also have a backup IT connection from PDS for local businesses with credit cards like restaurants or gas stations that cant afford to have their local connection fail. PDS Wireless is working in Coatesville, Waverly, Cloverdale, Hall and Eminence to reach customers. If you think about this, it took the phone companies 15 years to make broadband service available. Wireless companies can do that 18 times faster, Rogers said. He added that he is trying to build a co-op to get major fiber optics companies into the rural areas so wireless providers can build out to the underserved. Rogers said there is an industry website called WISPA. org (Wireless Internet Service Providers Association), which promotes the development, advancement and unification of the wireless Internet service provider industry. It has more than 600 members consisting of wireless Internet service providers, equipment manufactures, and service vendors and other interested parties.

Doesnt intend to quit

Local resident Maurita Searcy, who lives just south and west of Mooresville, contacted AT&T, which dominates the territory, if technicians planned to upgrade the hard lines that were aging and unreliable. She got an answer in the fall of 2011 from Lori Tarantino, customer appeals manager, who wrote her that AT&T executives said there are no plans to

Kyle Miller of Mooresville has worked many years for communications services and for NewWave Communications, which is updating Comcast services in Morgan and Hendricks counties, for more than a year. Photo by Amy Hillenburg. add or build any new 3G UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) towers in Searcys area in the new future. Currently, AT&Ts wireless coverage is moderate GSM 2G. There is no U-Verse/ DSL service in the area, and Tarantino said there are no plans to update it right now. Tarantino said Searcy could look for a new provider that has service or coverage in the area, and that AT&T would cancel any wireless contracts and services with no termination fees. Tarantino also advised that neighbors could file a petition to get a tower on someones land and gave Searcy the steps to do that. Searcy said shes not giving up. Even though the email from AT&T was disappointing, it was not unexpected... At least now, I have their intentions in writing. I am actively pursuing other avenues with some companies and have sent an emial to reconnect with Endeavor Communications, Searcy said. Since our areas cell service is terrible as well, I am working with Verizon on our low signal strength. To contact NewWave, call 888-863-9928 or www.newwave.com. You The PDS Wireless free-standing tower has been erected in Monrovia and hopes to serve an addican call PDS Wireless at tional 300 customers with high-speed service. Landscaping around it will be done in the spring. 317-831-3000 or www.pd- Photo by Amy Hillenburg. swireless.com.

AT&T employees stitching up Super scarves

By Julie Crothers jcrothers@reporter-times.com
MARTINSVILLE When Martinsville resident Robin Greenwood heard about the opportunity to put her crocheting skills to the test while helping out for the upcoming Super Bowl, she picked up her needles and got to work. Greenwood, an AT&T Pioneer employee, said she received an email from the company asking for help to knit or crochet a scarf to be donated to the 8,000 2012 Indianapolis Super Bowl volunteers. In the beginning, I said I was only going to make three or four, but then I would get one done and say Ill just get enough yarn to do three more, Greenwood said. But by the time she was done, shed made more than a dozen. I just really got into it. It was a nice stress reliever at night... and a really neat idea for the AT&T Pioneers to be involved with, she said. In all, more than 1,400 scarves were knitted by Hoosier AT&T employees to donate to volunteers. The donation represents a large part of the Super Bowl Committees goal of 8,000 scarves, director of communications for the 2012 Indianapolis Super Bowl Host Committee Dianna Boyce said in a release. We originally expected to receive scarves from individuals or knitting clubs, so to have one effort by the AT&T Pioneers produce so many scarves helped push us toward our goal more quickly... We loved the fact that bundled in with the scarves is the great gift of joy and warmth, Boyce said. Greenwood said she would have liked to volunteer in Indianapolis for the event, but didnt feel like she had the time to commit. This was just my way of volunteering. I have friends that are going up and volunteering, but this was my way to help, she said. It was interesting because they (the Super Bowl Committee) gave us dimensions that they wanted and how much blue and white to include, but then they told us we could come up with any design we wanted. Some people put snowflakes and designs in them. Mine were pretty basic. M a r g a r e t Tr a m m e l l , chapter president for Indiana AT&T Pioneers, said the scarves came in from all across the Hoosier state from Fort Wayne to Lafayette and Martinsville to Evansville. One AT&T retiree crocheted 65 scarves, while Trammell and her family created more than 100. Trammell said the idea to create scarves for volunteers began as a result of employees wanting to be involved with the Indianapolis event. The scarves are part of the uniform for the 8,000 volunteers that will be helping out. We started thinking what can the Pioneers do to be part of the experience in Indiana? she said. We have a lot of Pioneers across the state, so I thought if we could get just a fraction of our members to make one a piece, we could easily make 1,000 scarves. Using yarn purchased through the company, the volunteers began requesting shipments of the blue and white balls be transported across the state. Once a volunteer finished a scarf, it was mailed back to Trammell in Indianapolis. I originally told the Super Bowl Committee that we could have 1,000 scarves to them by June 1. On May 30, we had about 970 and we were so close, she said. But when the afternoon mail arrived, she unwrapped dozens more, bringing the grand total to 1,027, just in time for their June deadline. After that, we just continued to collect and had more than 1,400 in the end, Trammell said. One in six people are going to be wearing a handmade scarf made by our

These scarves were some of the more than 1,400 donated by the AT&T Pioneers. The scarves were donated to volunteers serving during the 2012 Super Bowl in Indianapolis. Submitted photo.
volunteers. Even for those who cant volunteer, it gave us a way to be there. This is a first for Indiana and we will always remember that we were a part of it.