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President: Alan Morse<\/p>\n
Access lines in Tennessee: 13,000<\/p>\n
Revenue-generating units companywide: 70,000<\/p>\n
Seven exchanges in Tennessee: Shelby, Tipton and Fayette and Haywood counties<\/p>\n
Employees: 52 in Tennessee; 320 companywide<\/p>\n
Ritter Communications, a company with 112 years of history in Arkansas, ventured into Tennessee in 2012 with the acquisitions of Millington Telephone and Millington Cable. But the ties between the companies began much earlier, says Bob Mouser, vice president of business development.<\/p>\n
Louis Ritter Jr., of Ritter Communications, and Babe Howard, of Millington Telephone, represented two of the 12 telephone companies that met in Memphis in 1963 to discuss dissatisfaction with the Federal Communication Commission\u2019s toll settlements, which determined the way telephone companies were compensated for handling automated and operator-assisted calls.<\/p>\n
The result of that meeting was the Memphis Plan, which was the foundation for a new national group \u2014 Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telephone Companies, known as OPASTCO. In 2013, OPASTCO merged with the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association to become NTCA\u2013The Rural Broadband Association.<\/p>\n
Now, Ritter Communications, based in Jonesboro, Arkansas, is an active member of Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance and the Tennessee Telecommunications Association.<\/p>\n
At Ritter Communications, it\u2019s almost like having four companies in one, Mouser says.
\n\u201cInternally, we refer to service in our traditional ILEC and HFC cable areas as \u2018hometown services,\u2019 and we\u2019re like everyone else, pushing out faster and faster broadband speeds to these communities,\u201d Mouser says.<\/p>\n
The push involves a variety of strategies, including fiber-to-the-home to new residential developments, fiber-to-the-premises to business and school locations, additional fiber-fed DSLAMs and node splitting.<\/p>\n
Ritter has the infrastructure in place to provide 10 Gbps service at the Memphis Regional Megasite, a 4,100-acre industrial site in Stanton, Tennessee, on Interstate 40. It represents a significant economic and community development \u00a0in West Tennessee. The gig service is a valued industrial recruitment tool for the site, Mouser says.<\/p>\n
Mouser says about 80 percent of the homes passed by Ritter\u2019s networks in West Tennessee are capable of receiving internet download speeds greater than 100 Mbps.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been amazing to watch the capacity requirements of the internet backbone grow over these last few years, and in West Tennessee that is now over 20 Gbps,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
For backup and redundancy, the systems in both Tennessee and Arkansas are meshed.<\/p>\n
Components such as switching, networking and video content are connected through diverse fiber paths, Mouser says.<\/p>\n
With a recent conversion, all operations in Arkansas and Tennessee are now on the same platform for operations support systems, he says.<\/p>\n
The results are greater efficiencies and higher customer satisfaction.<\/p>\n
Ritter also has an \u2018enterprise services,\u2019 which is fiber expansion across Arkansas that enables business services to selected cities.<\/p>\n
In addition, the company provides fiber-based services to other carriers, resellers and statewide networks, as well as education and health care networks.<\/p>\n
Ritter offers local channels with content for school and community events. Tubetownonline is one of the most popular features for customers.<\/p>\n
Ritter Communications is focused on providing exceptional, personalized customer service, bringing advanced services and caring for the communities the company serves, says Casey Pearce, communications specialist at Ritter Communications.<\/p>\n
In Tennessee, Ritter supports festivals and celebrations in all the communities they serve.<\/p>\n
Ritter recently partnered with Tipton County Schools to provide a $24,300 grant from the Ernest and Anna Ritter Family Endowment fund to purchase 45 computers that students are using to fill out Federal Application for Free Student Aid and Tennessee Promise tuition assistance program applications that are only available online.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are involved in the schools and love giving back to the community,\u201d Pearce says.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President: Alan Morse Access lines in Tennessee: 13,000 Revenue-generating units companywide: 70,000 Seven exchanges in Tennessee: Shelby, Tipton and Fayette and Haywood counties Employees: 52 in Tennessee; 320 companywide Ritter Communications, a company with 112 years of history in Arkansas, ventured into Tennessee in 2012 with the acquisitions of Millington Telephone and Millington Cable. But…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[279,263],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3292"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3292\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}