| The first, a cord-board, served the company well for over 30 years. In April 1946, the new dial equipment was ordered. The Relay-matic required much more space than was available in the current location. The telephone office had been in the same location above the bank as it changed names from the German Bank to the American Bank and then to the Walnut State Bank. In June 1947, the company bought the Pete Carstensen building, just west of the bank. Of course, like all progress, this brought comments. How in the world could you find where the doctor had gone, or if the road to town was open, or why so and so doesn't answer or how hot it is at noon in town or where the fire was, or how could you ever set your clock if no one was at the telephone board. But work moved along and on August 23, 1948 the new dial system went into effect. Somehow everyone learned to get along without the central girl. The office and equipment were moved into this building. In 1950 the remodeling took place, and it proved to be an attractive addition to the business district.
A new Stromberg Carlson X-Y switch and buried cable was installed in 1969. A Stromberg Carlson digital switch, the first in Iowa, replaced the X-Y in 1979. A second Stromberg Carlson digital switch was installed in 1989.
A third generation digital switch was installed in September 1998. The switch, from Mitel, is the 5th switch used in the Company. In 1999, replacement of the thirty-year-old buried rural copper cable began by placing fiber optic cable to nine locations from which new copper cable is being extended to the farms.
The switch that we are using now is a Taqua model OCX Soft Switch. It was installed in the spring of 2004. It is only the third such switch in the state of Iowa and one of less than seventy deployed worldwide. This switch is capable of all of the traditional as well as the state-of-the-art switching functions. It differs from past switches in that there is no direct physical connection from the customer to a point in the switch as all customer information and connections are made through the software, hence the name “soft switch”. This is true digital switching.
The most telling difference of the switches through the years has been how they have shrunk in size while providing more capacity and features with each change. The Relay-matic mechanical switch filled a 24’ X 30’ room with equipment to serve about 400 lines (most rural customers had party lines at this time). It was replaced by the electronic X-Y switch with a capacity of about 900 lines in the same floor space. The first generation Digital switch filled eight bays of equipment in about half the space of its predecessor with about the same capacity, 900 lines. The second generation Digital switch filled four cabinets, half the original, but with now 1000 lines and many new features. The Mitel was contained in one cabinet, if filled would handle about 2200 lines. The current Taqua OCX Soft Switch is the size of a moderate sized window air conditioner and if fully populated would be capable of switching nearly 100,000 lines.
In 1983, cable television was provided for our town customers with 12 channels available. By 1999, 38 channels were offered.
The telephone company expanded into cellular in 1982 and formed North Central Cellular Communications to apply for the license in the Omaha MSA. A partnership with other applicants was formed and service commenced in April 1985.
The Walnut Telephone Company created the subsidiary of Walnut Communications while participating in RSA#7. RSA#7 is the cellular service area between Omaha and Des Moines. Service commenced in 1990.
We joined Iowa Network Services in 1988 to provide Equal Access to our customers.
Fiber optic toll cable was buried to Marne to join US WEST in 1989. In 1995, a direct connect to the INS fiber added two additional toll routes connecting Walnut to the outside world.
North Central Cellular Communications was sold to Aliant Cellular in the first quarter of 1999. With the sale, several projects were initiated along with a sizable special dividend to stockholders.
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