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| CLEC Business Plan and Implementation |
Walnut Telephone Company
Walnut, Iowa |
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| Walnut Telephone Company, historically serving the small town of Walnut, Iowa saw a unique market opportunity due to requests from adjacent communities wanting access to advanced telecommunications services. Many of the advanced services offered in Walnut were not available in the neighboring towns of Minden, Shelby and Avoca. Walnut Telephone Company decided to investigate a plan to serve their neighbors who were previously served solely by larger regional telecommunications company. |
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| Consortia responded with superior expertise in: |
• Performing a feasibility study to determine the financial
viability of entering those markets
• Developing a plan for successful strategic and tactical implementation
• Guiding Walnut through all implementation processes
• Training Walnut's employees
• Providing sound regulatory advice |
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| The plan called for Walnut to overbuild the networks of three exchanges simultaneously. While the extensive plant construction work proceeded, Consortia secured network interconnection by: |
• Performing the necessary filings with the Iowa Utilities Board
• Negotiating interconnection agreements
• Completing all operational functions
• Directing weekly and sometimes daily conferences with Walnut, the
incumbent carrier, 911 PSAP committees, billing vendors and NeuStar |
| The success of this project involved detailed strategic planning, filing for state certification, negotiating contracts, setting rates, expanding carrier access billing, writing ASRs for shared incumbent facilities, testing trunk groups for three towns, obtaining codes for a new soft switch, writing CLEC tariffs, training, implementing Local Number Portability, and much more. |
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| Walnut Communications has been successfully providing service to the customers in Minden, Shelby and Avoca for several years and is continuing to expand its CLEC operations. Consortia is currently assisting Walnut with expansion into the communities of Underwood, Neola, Persia and Crescent. |
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