Cell Towers

mrsrunningbear

mrsrunningbear

Active member
They turned on the Paulding cell tower today!!!!! Full bars here at the resort!
Maybe this is the start of the turn on for the U.P.!
 
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electraglide1

Member
Oh mrsrunningbear tell me it's not true! Just kidding...... Well kind of. One of the things I've always enjoyed about the U.P. is being without cell service. I'm one of those people that like the security of having a cell in case of an emergency but I just hate getting a phone call (from work) when I'm spending some much needed time away. Sign of the times I guess. Last weekend a group of us were in Twin Lakes and we decided on the next trip we're going "Wild Hogs" and throwing the darn things out!
 
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Marty P

New member
Oh great...more tourists standing in the middle of the trail, on a curve, talking on the phone, holy wah...
 
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thunderstruck88

New member
Paulding lit up cell towers Now BiGFOOT can be safe:D YAHOO I heard the jolly Green Giant was after him Oh my my !!!:eek: lol Merry Christmas to you all !!!!
 
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wags

New member
What services are coming off the tower, anyone know? I hope it's not Sprint that way they work can't get me up North!
 
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meathead

New member
cell towers

mrsrunningbear said:
They turned on the Paulding cell tower today!!!!! Full bars here at the resort!
Maybe this is the start of the turn on for the U.P.!
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does this mean we now get dial\up... but touch tone is comein?????????????lol..lol..yes this is comin from an old geezzer that takes 10 min to type this...lol....lol come on dragon softwear (frnash ...please help an old dog lol..lol..)
 
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frnash

Active member
meathead said:
does this mean we now get dial\up... but touch tone is comein?????????????lol..lol..yes this is comin from an old geezzer that takes 10 min to type this...lol....lol come on dragon softwear (frnash ...please help an old dog lol..lol..)
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Touch-tone®? Dial? Old dog? Woof!

Hey I remember the old [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica]wooden-box-on-the-wall hand-crank party-line magneto[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica] phone[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica] — [/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica]much like one of these[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica] —[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica] on the living room wall at da family farm in Bruce Crossing — after several decades with[/FONT]out a phone at all! And somewhere between 1949 and 1962 when it was finally replaced by a desk set with a rotary dial (four-digit dialing for local numbers)!
<hr width="75%" size="2">Trivia Quiz:
Q: When were the first telephones installed in the State of Michigan, and where?
A: In 1877, in Rockland, MI!

Who'da thunk it? Remember, it was March 10, 1876, three days after his patent was issued, when Alexander Graham Bell first succeeded in getting his telephone to work!

I betcha din't know that, or this from the Ontonagon County Telephone Company: About Us.
OCTC History

Four Men Laugh Last
Their faith in Telephone Converted Area

Rockland, with its few hundred citizens, barely achieves a place on the map. Along with many notable locations, this town in Ontonagon County has its claim to fame. The first telephones in Michigan were installed in this remote Upper Peninsula village in 1877.

The telephone is the accepted means of transacting business and continuing friendships in Ontonagon County just as it is everywhere else in the world. Ancestors of many residents living in the area laughed at Linus Stannard and the "strange contraptions" he installed in his home and general store in 1877.

It was at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in June of 1876 that Linus Stannard heard Alexander Graham Bell lecture on the instrument through which sounds were made audible over wire. Having depended on his legs and his horse to deliver messages and discuss business, the Rockland man was interested. A demonstration the following day convinced him that the "gadget" was practical and would ease the life of his neighbors and himself.

Stannard's descriptions of the newfangled device was received with skepticism and outright ridicule. Benjamin Chynoweth of Rockland, Laurence Collins of Greenland, and James Mercer of Ontonagon gave their moral, as well as financial support, to Stannard and the project of bringing the telephone to the area. The first units were installed in the home and general store of Linus Stannard and the home of Ben Chynoweth in Rockland in 1877. The highlight of the Rockland social season that year was to gather in the Stannard and Chynoweth homes in the evening to talk back and forth over the telephone. One of the earlier types of instrument was described as a square box, six inches square with a hole in the center into which you spoke, utilizing the Blake transmitter with a single pole receiver.

Larry Collins, a merchant in Greenland, and James Mercer, owner of the docks in Ontonagon, saw greater promise for the telephone and so plans were made to extend the necessary wire lines from Rockland to Ontonagon, via Greenland. This project was built and completed in the winter of 1877-78 and consisted of iron wires strung on cedar poles. James Mercer also connected his Ontonagon home on the Greenland Road with his docks on the Ontonagon River by stringing wires on and through the trees across town. The building of the line from Rockland to Ontonagon enabled Mercer to reach his agent in Rockland when supplies came into the Ontonagon Harbor. His efforts were referred to as "Mercer's Folly" by his friends and business associates. In 1879, the four good friends organized their dream by drawing up articles of association which were signed in September of that same year. These four men, with Linus's son George, were the original stockholders. On October 27, 1879, the State of Michigan granted the company its corporate charter as the Ontonagon Telegraph Company. Evidently the term "telephone" was not formally used by the state at that time.

People still chuckle over early experiences with Bell's invention. Jim Mercer loved to tell of the time he called home from the docks and asked his wife to call Antoine, the hired hand, to the phone. Mrs. Mercer handed the receiver to Antoine and said that Mr. Mercer wanted to talk to him. He put the receiver to this ear, as instructed by Mrs. Mercer, and said hello. When Mr. Mercer started talking, the astonished fellow dropped the receiver, cried "Mon Dieu, it talks!", and dashed from the house. In the same vein, another story is told of the first call received in Frank Scharf's trailer shop in Ontonagon. Charlie Schmidlin, a good friend, called Frank from Rockland. As Frank gingerly picked up the receiver, Charlie started to talk in German. Frank, looking perplexed, slowly turned to his friends in the shop and said, "This thing talks German too.".

The first telephone exchange was in Rockland and the headquarters were maintained there until 1932 when they moved to Ontonagon. Early exchanges, or centrals as they were called, were also installed in Greenland and Ontonagon. The Greenland exchange was later moved to Mass City. In 1912 the four communities truly broke out of their isolation when the telephone lines were connected to the lines of the Michigan State Telephone Company (now AT&T). Life was never to be the same for the area.

In 1949 dial exchanges were installed in Bruce Crossing, Rockland, and the Mass-Greenland area. The White Pine exchange was built in 1952 as the most up-to-date dial exchange available at that time. In 1962 the Ontonagon exchange became the fifth and last exchange to be converted to dial service while the Bruce Crossing, Rockland and Mass exchanges were replaced with new dial equipment. In 1963 the Ewen Telephone company was purchased from Frank and Albert Speese families and a new dial central office was built to serve that area. In August of 1972, the White Pine exchange became the first office in the system to be converted to one-party service. At that time, the Silver City area was incorporated into the White Pine exchange after being served out of Ontonagon for many years.

Realizing that a small telephone company could not hope to compete in this day and age of fast moving electronic changes without help, in 1961 the Ontonagon County Telephone Company turned to the REA telephone loan program. Since then several hundred remote rural customers have been reached and served by the telephone. The Ontonagon County Telephone Company now serves over 4,500 customers within 960 square miles of Ontonagon County.
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G

Guest
In 2-3 years many of us will have sat phones and all these towers will be obsolete.
 
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whitedust

Well-known member
Can't remember name of MN town off I90 spent 1 night there on way to Black Hills & has huge lighted statue of the Jolly Green Giant....Ho Ho HO. Considered taking pictures for yaws & giggles then thought who would care & didn't. Guess I should have now.:)
 
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thebluff

Member
wags said:
Again anyone know what providers are coming off the tower?
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Our at&t sales guy tells me that funds are allocated for the west Yoop to do some major changes for at&t in the next several months. i cant speak for that tower specifically but many of the new ones that were installed in the west Yoop will have at&t attached to them if they dont already. most of the new ones were put up by a private company unlike the one here in Ontonagon that is oned by at&t.

Marquette should be 3g soon and so will Houghton. Lake Linden should be up and running late Dec or early Jan for at&t and Twin Lakes is supposed to happen in that time frame as well. Delays have plagued both of these towers...so who knows for sure.

Older towers like Rockland (I do not know if this one specifically will get attention or not) are supposed to get upgrades made to them over the next year.

Off topic a bit, but buyer beware from all of the providers as they start to pitch the new 4G phones. None of them, at&t included come even close to it. An article on cnnmoney.com calls it "fauxG service". 4G is defined as 100 Mbps download. The current providers that advertise it theoritically get 1/3 to 1/2 that speed and actual speeds are 1/10th of that. There is no danger of real 4g in the near future from anybody.

Aside from being lodging providers, my wife and I are also authorized retailers for at&t in Ontonagon. please keep us in mind for your on the road needs...or if you are considering a new contract, we can work with you. this area has been hit super hard with the mill and other closures the business would help our neck of the woods out some!
 
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