Up to now, all they had was very spotty cell service.
There have been several news items (radio/TV/newspapers) that I came up with doing "google" news searches, but I did some additional research using the localcallingguide.com website, and also called up the local telco that is providing service to Iowa Hill CA.
Most of the news articles didn't go into detail as to which telephone company is providing service to Iowa Hill CA. But at least one news article did mention a company in Foresthill CA named "Sebastian". This is the name of the company that owns the independent "Foresthill Telephone Company", OCN 2318. (The name is apparently one single word, "Foresthill").
I did try looking up on NANPA's (US) NPA-NXX c.o.code pages at their website for the 530 area code (northeastern California), to see if there was a ratecenter name (and 530-NXX code) for "Iowa Hill CA", but there was no such distinct (new) ratecenter.
I looked up on the localcallingguide.com website, and also no such ratecenter (nor 530-NXX) for "Iowa Hill CA". But there is the Foresthill CA ratecenter with 530-367 (I wonder if that could have been an old 916-FOresthill-7- exchange name in the old 2L-5N days? :-) And the c.o.switch is FRHLCAXFDS0, an Alcatel-Lucent 5ESS.
I called up the Sebastian/Foresthill Telephone Company to inquire further, and they confirmed that Iowa Hill CA is simply an "extension" of the existing Foresthill CA ratecenter, with 530-367 numbers, and Iowa Hill CA also gets dialtone from the 5ESS in Foresthill CA.
According to the localcallingguide.com website, the Foresthill CA ratecenter (which includes Iowa Hill) has local/EAS with the following three nearby ratecenters:
Colfax:Colfax (District Area) CA (OCN 4420 VeriZon/GTE-once-Contel) Colfax:Weimar (District Area) CA (OCN 4420 VeriZon/GTE-once-Contel) Georgetown CA (at&t/SBC/Pacific*Bell)
There are no other 530-NXX c.o.codes other than 530-367 for the Foresthill CA ratecenter (including Iowa Hill CA), thus there are NO CLECs nor wireless providers associated with the Foresthill CA ratecenter. Also, Foresthill CA is the only ratecenter served by Sebastain/Foresthill Telco.
About six years ago, the community of "Mink LA" finally got landline telephone service for the very first time from BellSouth/So.Central Bell. They had been trying to get service for 40-some years, ever since the mid-1960s when it was still part of Southern Bell. But in 2004, the La.PSC finally ordered BellSouth to extend landline loops/dialtone from the Leesville (Vernon Parish) LA ratecenter (Leesville with an 's', NOT Leeville which is in Lafourche Parish in LA, and served by the independent Latelco, Lafourche Telephone Company). It's probably the Leesville LA "Simpson" central office LEVLLASNDS0 which provides dialtone to the heavily wooded and hilly settlement of "Mink LA", since this c.o.switch is the one closest; but it "could" be possible that the "Main" c.o.switch at Leesville LEVLLAMADS0, a 5ESS, actually provides dialtone to "Mink LA".
SO, it seems that there are still areas in the US which don't yet have landline telephone service. I don't think that there are still any "ringdown" or "non-customer-dial" points in the US anymore, but there were still a few here/there, mostly in remote parts of California and Nevada as late as the early 2000s. I wonder if it would have been more efficient to extend better cellular service to Iowa Hill CA and other similar areas? The trend does seem to be people dumping landline in favor of wireless, and since this community never had landline before, even though the cellular was spotty, maybe it would have been better to improve the cellular signal to this area?
Mark J. Cuccia markjcuccia at yahoo dot com Lafayette LA, formerly of New Orleans LA pre-Katrina
Cabling-Design.com Forums website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.