Public Service has been serving middle Georgia with telecommunications service since 1910 and is one of the oldest companies of its type in the south. It is a privately owned corporation. Public Service Communications is the parent company of PSTC and has many subsidiaries covering a wide-array of services including voice, data, broadband and cable – deployed over copper, cable, fiber and wireless technologies. Significant events in its history are:

January 2011

A great milestone is completed as Public Service Telephone Company celebrates its 100th Anniversary of proudly serving the telecommunications needs of rural Central Georgia. Click here to read the complete story.

March 2010

FLINT CABLE AWARDED BROADBAND STIMULUS GRANT

Flint Cable TV is awarded a stimulus grant funding in the amount of a $4,095,913 loan and $4,095,913 grant. The funding will provide a Hybrid Fiber Coaxial (HFC) network to homes in underserved areas of Culloden, Yatesville, and Southern Crawford County Georgia allowing for real technological growth in each of these underserved areas. This HFC network will use the latest DOCSIS 3.0 cable standard, enabling channel bonding and initial speeds up to 20 Mbps.

The funding will allow Flint Cable Television to provide a triple-play service offering to include high speed internet, VoIP phone services (Voice over Internet Protocol) and expanded cable channel offerings. Flint Cable has plans to expand its cable service offering by over 68 channels to include over 30 additional HD channel selections and will closely mirror Flint's packaging in its other markets which include Roberta, Butler, Reynolds and Buena Vista, GA. New high speed internet services will provide consumers in the area the ability to surf the Internet at speeds of 20 Mbps. Bundles today offer speeds of 12 Mbps. VoIP phone services will provide consumers with a more affordable phone solution and allow for even greater savings by bundling all three services together (triple-play).

On Friday, February 19, 2010, Congressman Sanford Bishop was the guest speaker for the Taylor County Kiwanis Club in Reynolds, GA. Congressman Bishop outlined the many advantages of broadband and conveyed his support for broadband stimulus in the rural areas of Georgia currently not served or under-served - citing his desire for job growth and a better educated population. Congressman Bishop has been involved in the broadband stimulus grant process from the beginning and has constantly monitored the progress for the Flint Cable Television grant application.

FLINT CABLE HD CHANNEL EXPANED

As part of the ever growing demand for HD content, Flint Cable has added several new HD channels to its line-up to include ESPN-HD, ESPN2-HD and ESPNU-HD. Flint Cable now offers 35 HD channels ranging from local affiliates to national programming stations such as Disney, Discovery, Sci-Fi, The Learning Channel and many more. Customers will need to obtain an HD receiver from Flint in order to view HD content.

700 MHz TEST SITE

Public Service Wireless has turned up a Pre-LTE (Long Term Evolution) base station manufactured by IP Wireless in our Reynolds area. The new service, still in the testing phase, can extend high speed wireless data service up to 10 miles from the City of Reynolds. Look for more news regarding this exciting technology.

ADSL2+ BONDING & VDSL TECHNOLOGIES PROVIDE FASTER DSL SPEEDS

Public Service Telephone/Public Service Data can now double speeds to current DSL customers (in most of our service areas) using new ADSL2+ Bonding technology. By "bonding" two DSL services together, customers who were previously too far from a central office or concentrator may now be able to obtain higher speeds up to 48 Mbps down / 2 Mbps up. Also in the testing phase is VDSL (Very High Speed DSL). VDSL will provide up to 100 Mbps down and 50 Mbps up. Requests for these new speeds will be reviewed by engineering to determine whether the customer meets the new criteria.

PSTC OPEN TWO NEW PAYMENT OFFICES

The beginning of January 2010 Central Bank of Butler discontinued accepting payments for Public Service Telephone and the company opened a new payment location in Butler on N. Broad Street (next to the PSTC Central Office). Immediately following, the payment location accepting payment for PSTC in Talbotton closed due to a family emergency creating the necessity to re-open the Talbotton payment location on West Harrison Street.

January 2010

A new wireless broadband logo, website www.psdatawireless.com and marketing materials are developed and distributed to initiate customer interest and awareness for the new wireless broadband service.

December 2009

PSW proceeds with the wireless broadband build-out in Reynolds, Butler, Rupert, Oakland and Buena Vista markets, and begins testing equipment and connectivity. Branding of the new service offering to include package pricing, new website and other marketing related initiatives get underway.

August 2009

Public Service Wireless (PSW) and Flint Cable Television (FCTV) submitted grants on August 19th, as part of the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009 broadband stimulus initiative. The PSW application covered over 25 rural counties, with the intent to provide broadband access for Public Safety, Healthcare, Public Education, as well as those consumers currently unserved or underserved with broadband internet access. PSW received letters of support from a number of city and county government officials, in addition to Senator George Hooks, Representative Tony Sellier, Congressman Sanford Bishop, Darton College (Albany, GA) and the Southwest Georgia Technology Authority (SWGTA). SWGTA is located among the poorest and most underserved counties within the state of Georgia and are looking forward to the creation of jobs and future economic development which the broadband infrastructure can stimulate.

Flint Cable Television applied for stimulus funding to provide advanced broadband services to the underserved areas in the southern portion of Crawford County. In addition, the FCTV application requested funding for network expansion for both video and VOIP telephone services.

March 2009

Flint Cable Television completes conversion of the Piedmont/Crawford service area to new digital cable services taking the customers in the this area from 56 to over 175 channels. Also for the first time, free local HD channels and DVR service is made available.

November 2008

PSTEL.Net, the Internet member of the Public Service Communications Family, began offering low cost monthly PC Security Software protection plans to its Internet customers. Three levels of monthly security software coverage plans are provided to choose from, each offering a wide range of services depending on customer needs. PSTEL.Net also began offering affordable one-time on-line repair services for its customers without security plans. The one-time charge for repair services includes options for PC diagnostic, virus removal, PC tune-up and even training on Windows vista. PSTEL.Net also increased the size of customer e-mail boxes from100 Mbps to 1 Gigabyte.

October 2008

Flint Cable Television begins offering “Triple Play” over cable in its Buena Vista market. The company introduces the service by offering Free Phone Service to any (qualifying) cable customer purchasing Expanded Basic Cable and 6 Megabyte High Speed Internet.

Flint Cable also begins offering free local HD (High Definition) channels in all its digital cable markets.

September 2008

Flint Cable Television announces it is completely phasing out of single analog premium channels in preparation of the digital transition planned for June 2009.

July 2008

Public Service increased its High Speed Internet connectivity speeds to 6 or 12 Megabytes, allowing higher connectivity for gaming and downloading of large media related files.

January 2008

Rarely heard of, in January of 2008, PSTEL.Net lowered the retail price of its DSL High Speed Internet Packages.

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