Mid-Rivers was established in 1952. Mid-Rivers celebrated its 50th Anniversary in 2002.
Mid-Rivers provides telecommunications services to 30,000 square miles in a 21-county area of eastern Montana and three counties in North Dakota. Mid-Rivers is the largest land mass telephone cooperative in the Continental U.S.
Mid-Rivers operates over 10,100 route miles of telephone line. Mid-Rivers continues to install fiber optic cable. Approximately 1,400 miles of fiber optic cable are installed in Mid-Rivers' service area.
Mid-Rivers is headquartered in Circle, Montana.
Mid-Rivers has 175 employees.
Facilities: headquarters and warehouse in Circle; downtown office and operations network center in Glendive; customer services offices in Baker, Circle, Glendive, Lewistown, Miles City, Roundup, Sidney and Wibaux. Exchanges are in Baker, Bloomfield, Carlyle, Circle, Custer, East Carlyle, East Fairview, Ekalaka, Fairview, Fallon, Glendive, Grass Range, Jordan, Lambert, Lavina, Lewistown, Lindsay, Melstone, Miles City, Musselshell, North Ryegate, Plevna, Richey, Rock Springs, Roundup, Roy, Ryegate, Savage, Sidney, South Wolf Point, Terry, West Glendive, West Sidney, Wibaux and Winnett.
Mid-Rivers is the largest Montana-owned provider of voice services to Montana subscribers with over 25,000 working access lines; 19,000 are residential lines; 6,000 are business lines.
Mid-Rivers constructed a new generation high-speed Internet Protocol (IP) distance learning interactive television (ITV) system in 18 sites in 2003. These sites include Baker, Circle, Fairview, Glendive, Jordan, Melstone, Lambert, Lavina, Prairie View Special Services in Glendive, Richey, Roundup, Roy, Savage, Sidney, Terry, and Wibaux High Schools and Dawson Community College, Miles Community College and Montana State University-Billings. Mid-Rivers ITV history began when Baker, Ekalaka, Plevna, and Terry linked together for the first Montana network in 1990.
Mid-Rivers provides one-party service. Signaling System 7 (SS7) availability provides features such as caller ID, repeat dialing and call return. Other advanced calling features, such as voice mail, call forwarding, call waiting speed dial, and telemarketing screening are also available.
Mid-Rivers has invested over $200 million in telecommunications plant.
State-of-the-art tandem telephone switches are located in Glendive and Roundup. All 31 central offices in the cooperative have digital telephone switches for quality voice and data transmission.
Cable & Communications Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mid-Rivers Telephone Cooperative, sells and maintains business telephone systems.
Mid-Rivers Cellular operates a main switching facility in Circle with cellular towers at Alzada, Ashland, Baker, Broadus, Cabin Creek, Circle, Glendive, Grass Range, Ekalaka, Hammond, Ismay, Jordan, Lindsay, Locate, McGuire Creek, Miles City, North Cohagen, North Lambert, Rim Road, Rock Springs, Roy, Sand Springs, Savage, Sheep Mountain, Sidney, South Ekalaka, Van Norman, Vida South, Volborg, Winnett and cellular extender sites in Broadus, Plevna and Richey. Mid-Rivers offers digital cellular service to its towers. Mid-Rivers Cellular also sells cellular telephone telephone equipment and accessories.
Mid-Rivers Cable Television is the largest Montana-owned video provider, operating 19 cable television systems in Baker, Circle, Ekalaka, Fairview, Fallon, Glendive, Harlowton, Hysham, Jordan, Lavina, Lewistown, Richey, Roundup, Ryegate, Savage, Sidney, Terry and Wibaux. Mid-Rivers' digital television service, MegaVue, is offered in Baker, Fairview, Fallon, Glendive, Lewistown, Miles City, Richey, Rural Richland County, Savage, Sidney, and Terry serving 14,500 customers. High Definition Television (HDTV) and Digital Video Recorder services is offered to 80 percent of Mid-Rivers Cable Television customers. Mid-Rivers provides local video content on a channel seen by several of the cable television customers with plans to provide it to all customers in the near future.
Mid-Rivers Internet is one of the largest independent Montana providers of Internet services in the state. New Internet equipment continues to be installed, increasing capacity for an ever-growing customer base. Mid-Rivers serves over 15,500 Internet subscribers. EmailGUARD, a spam-blocking service, is offered to all Mid-Rivers Internet customers.
Mid-Rivers provides high-speed Internet access to approximately 12,000 customers or 80% of Mid-Rivers Internet customers. Cable modem technology is available in East Fairview, Fairview, Glendive, Lewistown, Miles City, Sidney and West Glendive. Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) service is available to customers in other exchanges who are within the technical distance limitations. Extended Range DSL is also available in selected areas. With this service, Mid-Rivers is capable of providing high-speed Internet to rural locations as far as 18 miles from a Central Office. High-speed Internet via satellite is now available to the most remote rural customers, providing 100 percent broadband access across the Mid-Rivers service area.
Mid-Rivers provides on-line billing services.
Mid-Rivers Long Distance has offered all distance toll service to Mid-Rivers Telephone Cooperative members since 1998.
700 MHz licenses have been obtained from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). 700 MHz services provides voice and broadband services to the Kinsey and Lambert areas. Wi-Fi service is available at some area businesses.
Mid-Rivers provides rural economic development assistance to communities within its service area. Area grants awarded with Mid-Rivers' assistance as of August 1, 2008 were over $2.6 million. They include assistance to volunteer fire departments, athletic organizations, schools, parks and others.
Mid-Rivers operates over 120 vehicles and Mid-Rivers employees drive over 2 million miles per year.
Mid-Rivers and its subsidiary paid property taxes of approximately $1.4 million in 2007 and $594,773 in state and federal income taxes in 2007.
Mid-Rivers annually awards 12 Higher Education Scholarships to area students attending colleges, universities, and technical schools.
Mid-Rivers retired $1.3 million in patronage capital credits in September 2008. Including the 2008 payment, Mid-Rivers has refunded over $28 million in capital credits to its members in the past 22 years.
Fiber-to-the-Premise (FTTP) service is currently being provided in Lewistown and will be provided in areas of Miles City, Lambert and Ekalaka in 2009.
