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Social Media Has a Role in the Workplace...Says Your Facebooking Colleague in...
Given the degree to which social media has permeated our daily lives, it seems unrealistic to expect that it has not infiltrated the American workplace, as well. And it has—with both good and bad...
View ArticleMETC, Walnut Communications to Merge
NTCA members Marne and Elk Horn Telephone Co. (METC; Elk Horn, Iowa) and Walnut Communications (Walnut, Iowa) are set to merge later this year. The board of directors from each company approved the...
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Hacking Barbie's Fingerprints
It seems that security, rightly so, is all the rage. And, yet, even the measures we think will work are vulnerable, leading to ever-evolving responses to the latest threats. Biometric information,...
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Report: One in Four American Families Live Without Cable or Satellite Service
We’ve long heard tales of those so-called “cord cutters,” bravely living their lives without subscribing to cable or satellite TV service. But recent estimates as to the actual number of these...
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White Paper: Rural Broadband Benefits Urban Areas
The NTCA white paper, “Beyond Rural Walls: Identifying Impact and Interdependencies Among Rural and Urban Spaces,” finds that the benefits of rural broadband extend to urban areas.The paper was...
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A Week of Printed Tech Media in Review (I Read, So You Don’t Have To)
This morning, I saw my child off to camp. Campers are prohibited from bringing phones, tablets, and other electronics, which means that for several weeks in a rural setting off a country road, they...
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Happy Birthday, MTV, and a Look Back at Sports and Pay TV
In the summer of 1981, Gary Carter of the Expos helped propel the National League to its tenth consecutive All Star Game victory, while NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle was negotiating an agreement that...
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You Have Built It, and They Have Come
At the turn of the 21st century, we at NTCA—struck by the dearth of available quantitative data on our member companies and rural telcos more generally—distributed a survey in an effort to offer some...
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Education, Health Care Enjoy Support with Smart Rural Community Awards
What do students in Alaska, vacationers in Vermont, and medical patients in Minnesota have in common? They all benefit from broadband-enabled solutions supported in part by Smart Rural Community (SRC)...
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Walmart Aims $33 Billion at E-Commerce
Walmart and I had the same great idea this week: we both affirmed the growing role of e-commerce. The major difference between our actions was price. Whereas I committed about $65 and change, Walmart...
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Let's Be Careful Out There...
There are times in life when the desire for convenience overwhelms our common sense. Take jaywalking, for example. Those few moments saved by crossing the street in the middle of the block can put...
View ArticleFRS, NTCA Wyoming Members to Host Congressional Broadband Tour
The Foundation for Rural Service (FRS) will be hosting its annual Congressional Broadband Tour August 15-18 in Wyoming with NTCA member companies Tri-County Telephone Association (Cody, Wyo.), RT...
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It's a Bird, It's a Plane...
Aerial news coverage has certainly come a long way since Les Nessman’s ill-fated 1978 Thanksgiving turkey drop. The proverbial eye in the sky took a step closer to becoming reality last week with...
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T-Mobile Changes Eyed with Skepticism
A classmate in college once complained that the student newspaper had published an unflattering account of his student council leadership. Our professor, who seemed at once wholly uninterested in the...
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Rural Just Got a Whole Lot Smarter
Earlier this month, the Smart Rural Community Advisory Council met at NTCA offices in Arlington to designate the 2016 class of Smart Rural Community (SRC) Showcase award recipients. Since 2013, 44 NTCA...
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Connected Devices and Personal Connections
In six days, I will submit a press application for next year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which is scheduled for January 2017 (for reviews of last year's CES, please scroll to the bottom of...
View ArticleNew York Community-Based Providers Receive Broadband Grants
NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association member companies Armstrong Telephone Co. of New York (Addison, N.Y.), Germantown Telephone Co. (Germantown, N.Y.), Margaretville Telephone Co. (MTC; Margaretville,...
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Lessons in Aging: iPhones and Roller Coasters
Sometime over Labor Day weekend, I looked around the gym and saw that I was about 20 years older than the next youngest player on the basketball court. And then I realized that the same mathematical...
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Something's Growing, Over-the-Top
According to Park Associates’ OTT Video Market Tracker service, over-the-top video subscriptions have increased by 12% since the third quarter of 2014.“We have already seen a steady climb thus far in...
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There May be 57 Channels and Nothing On*...But at Least It Will Be Crystal Clear
Though there may not be much that can be done to improve the quality of television programming, consumers continue to embrace new technologies which will bring the same old dreck into their homes in...
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