September 01, 2009 - Missoula, MT
Not usually thought of as hotbeds of innovation, rural telcos over the last five years have found themselves making the move to all-IP environments, often at a faster clip than their big carrier counterparts. (See page 8: Dave Martin, Blackfoot’s VP of Product Management and Chief Technology Officer)

February 12, 2009 - Missoula, MT
Small businesses with 100 or fewer employees represent about 98 persent of all U.S. and Canadian organizations. Historically, firms of this size hav not had affordable access to the business communications features that larger companies take for granted.

January 16, 2008 - Missoula, MT
Blackfoot Telecommunications fired back at a consultant this week, stating that Mineral County residents have “as good, if not better, high-speed Internet options than many major cities in the state.” The local telephone and Internet provider responded to a Paul DeWolfe presentation at the regular monthly meeting of the BitterRoot RC&D in Superior last week...

June 01, 2007 - Missoula, MT
Twenty-five miles outside of Philipsburg, Mont. (pop. 900), near the Western gateway to Yellowstone National Park sits the 150-acre Great Divide Ranch. From the road, the ranch looks like any other dude ranch in this part of the Rocky Mountains. However, thanks in large part to Blackfoot Telecommunications Group (Missoula, Mont.), the Great Divide Ranch offers something more than horse riding lessons and an opportunity to brand your own cow. Behind the walls of the main house, computers controlling one of the largest databases in the United States hum steadily in an open room, people dart about with coffee and readouts, and phones ring. Several TVs are going at once, adding to the wall of sound.

January 01, 2007 - Missoula, MT
Founded as a cooperative in 1954, Blackfoot Telephone is one of the largest telephone companies in the Mid-West with 23 exchanges serving over 17,000 lines across 6,500 square miles of southwestern Montana. Headquartered in Missoula, Blackfoot offers a full array of personal and business communications options that include local telephone service, high-speed Internet service, communications systems, long distance, and wireless digital PCS...

December 01, 2006 - Missoula, MT
Blackfoot Telecommunications Group received top honors as the Large Private Employer of the Year at Montana's annual Governor's Conference on Workers' Compensation and Occupational Safety, held in September in West Yellowstone, Mont. Human Resource Manager Laura Marshall accepted the award for Blackfoot and gave credit to Blackfoot CEO Joan Mandeville, acknowledging that "creating a safety culture really does start at the top, and Joan genuinely cares about our employees' safety." Blackfoot was recognized for establishing a wide array of effective safety and health wellness programs. Over the past three years, more than 75 separate topics have been covered in safety classes taught at Blackfoot. Blackfoot also received accolades for adding workplace safety to employee reviews, in an effort to promote safety as a top company priority...

December 01, 2006 - Missoula, MT
Blackfoot Telecommunications Group announced Thursday its acquisition of Internet Connect Services (ICS), a 12-year-old, Missoula-based Internet Service Provider (ISP) that has been struggling through reorganization. \"The acquisition is a natural fit for Blackfoot,\" said Joan Mandeville, Blackfoot\'s CEO. \"ICS has clear synergies with Blackfoot; it\'s an ideal customer base, we offer broadband services and we\'re a Montana company that will keep mymontana.com and montana.com locally owned and operated. We\'re going to return stability to the company\'s operational and financial outlook.\" ICS has approximately 8,400 customers using their e-mail, web-development and hosting services. There will be no immediate changes in service or to the appearance of the mymontana.com or montana.com web portal or e-mail...

October 04, 2006 - Missoula, MT
Twenty-five miles outside of Phillipsburg, Montana, sits the 150-acre Great Divide Ranch. From the road, the ranch looks like a “dude” ranch one would expect to find in this part of the Rocky Mountains. But the Great Divide Ranch offers something more than horse riding lessons and an opportunity to brand your own cow...

May 18, 2006 - Missoula, MT

April 01, 2006 - Missoula, MT

March 07, 2006 - Missoula, MT
A group of witnesses before the Senate Commerce Committee said that the financial state of the ru telecommunications business is reaching a critical point. The hearing this morning looked at all of th federal government programs and regulations. All agreed that the current system does not meet ru consumers’ needs as demand grows for broadband Internet access. Witnesses discussed specific ide reform the Federal Universal Service Fund (USF), intercarrier compensation rules and the Rural Util Service’s (RUS’s) Broadband Loan Program...

July 11, 2005 - Missoula, MT
From the immobile elderly in high-rise urban apartments to the pregnant farmer 5 miles from a helping hand, no one likes to be alone, especially in times of emergency. So as independent telcos such as the Blackfoot Telephone Cooperative in Western Montana and OmniTel in North Central Iowa begin migrating away from circuit-switched networks and toward softswitch architectures, where switching functions become more centralized, one of the more important little details is emergency stand-alone capabilities...

July 11, 2005 - Missoula, MT
Montana is known for its beautiful mountain vistas, its massive state parks and its rugged individualism. Here, the Blackfoot Telecommunications Group is living up to the reputation of its hometown, Missoula, a once-distant outpost that sent the first Congresswoman to Washington — 30 years before women were given the right to vote. The parent company of Blackfoot Telephone Cooperative, founded in 1954, also is proving that it\'s ahead of its time in moving to an optical Ethernet backbone network, even though it meant installing fiber deep into a service territory that covers 22 exchanges outside Missoula and includes 17,000 access lines spread over 6500 miles of mountains and canyons...

July 01, 2005 - Missoula, MT

March 07, 2005 - Missoula, MT
MetaSwitch, the leading independent vendor of Class 5 VoIP solutions, today further strengthened its product portfolio with the introduction of the UC9000 Unified Communications System. Adding a range of compelling SIP-based features to MetaSwitch\'s existing softswitch product line, the UC9000 is an extensible, standards-based platform targeted at service providers seeking to increase revenues from next generation services...

January 01, 2004 - Missoula, MT
\"Blackfoot Directory Assistance. City and state, please?\" \"Missoula, Montana.\" \"Are you looking for a business, government or residential listing?\" \"Residential, please.\" \"What listing?\" Although the conversation sounds ordinary, this customer of Blackfoot Telecommunications in Missoula, Mont., isn\'t speaking with a live operator. Blackfoot\'s new speech-recognition system is helping directory assistance customers find the information they need, without ever contacting an operator or pressing a touchtone keypad...