founded 1908 founder jacob anthes headquarters langley washington united states key people marion henny chairperson julia henny demartini co ceo george henny co ceo services telephony internet television slogan buy local thrive local we make it easy website whidbeytel.com whidbey telecom formerly whidbey telephone company and often called whidbey tel is a private independent telecommunications company operating on the south end of whidbey island in washington state the community of point roberts washington and doing business as hat island telephone company on hat gedney island . whidbey telecom is unusual because it is locally owned and has never been a part of a larger company . whidbey telecom is also unusual in that 100 % of the lines it services are buried underground . the company attributes this action to highly reliable service in an area racked with storms that cause frequent power outages . contents 1 history 2 internet services 3 television 4 rebranding 5 service area and exchanges 5.1 whidbey island 5.2 point roberts 5.3 hat gedney island 6 external links history edit whidbey telephone was founded in 1908 by local business owners and farmers in langley washington . they wanted to provide telephone service to the community but wanted to keep the ownership local to prevent an outside company from interfering in the affairs of the whidbey island community . all residents of south whidbey had access to the whidbey telephone system by 1920 . the company prospered but after world war ii an influx of new residents began to tax the small phone company . by 1950 the company began to make major upgrades to its network but began to lose money . a local business man david c. henny in 1953 purchased a controlling interest in whidbey telephone company in order to prevent a sale to at & t. under his leadership the company was able to restructure and become profitable again all the while completing much needed upgrades to the infrastructure . the henny family still controls the company . winters in washington bring many storms whidbey telephone had overhead wires and when the storms came the lines went down . after several winters where more than 60 % of their customers lost service the company decided to bury its entire network . by 1961 100 % of its lines were buried a first for local telephone companies . since then there has yet to be a widespread service disruption due to infrastructure damage . whidbey telephone became the first local phone company west of the rocky mountains to provide internet access to its customers in 1994 . in 2000 while many phone companies were just beginning to offer dsl services whidbey began an aggressive campaign to provide the service to all of it customers . in just two years the entire service area including point roberts and hat island had dsl service available . for a few years the company s internet division whidbey.net even offered dsl to residents in verizon territory on whidbey island . when frontier took over the verizon territory they began an aggressive campaign to expand their services and while they can t claim 100 % availability in their territory they have largely removed whidbeytel as competition . internet services edit internet services on whidbey island began in 1993 . whidbey telephone began whidbey internet services wis to cover the telephone company s service area . at the same time another company whidbey internet connections wic was founded to serve customers of gte on the north end of the island . wic later expanded to also serve people on the south end of whidbey island . wic s internet domain was whidbey.net whereas wis s was whidbey.com . whidbey internet connections and whidbey internet services merged in 1995 into whidbey.net . as a result of the merger some customers of whidbey.net on the south end of whidbey continue to have . net addresses whereas most south end customers have . com . until 2001 whidbey.net maintained two different customer databases on their servers leading some customers to have different passwords and even different usernames depending on how and where they connected to the isp . whidbey.net began to offer dsl services to some customers within one mile of local exchange systems in 2000 . by 2002 all whidbey telephone customers were capable of receiving whidbey.net dsl on south whidbey island and in point roberts . in 2005 the newly rebranded whidbey telecom internet and broadband began offering 5.5 mbit s dsl and set their other speeds at 512kbit s and 2.5 mbit s. however whidbey telecom does not offer dsl services in verizon territory on whidbey island but does still provide dial up services in those areas . beginning the spring of 2009 whidbey telecom began upgrading customers free of charge from adsl to adsl2 services . this included speed upgrades to 18mbit s 12mbit s and 6mbit s. a new 30mbit s bonded adsl2 service was also made available at that time . additionally existing dial up customers were offered a discounted 3mbit s service in advance of whidbey telecom s phasing out their dial up service on south whidbey and in point roberts which was completed by summer 2010 . with the addition of television services even faster internet connections have become available utilizing vdsl2 technologies . the dsl prices are competitive although whidbey telecom is the only provider that covers their entire service area . competition is split among comcast and wave for terrestrial based services and wild blue and hughesnet for celestial . in addition to dsl services on south whidbey whidbey telecom also provides free wifi hotspots in many locations on south whidbey for customers as well as a pay to play service for visitors . fiber to the home is not yet available but businesses may connect using fibre technology including gigabit service . television edit the dream of offering television services has been one whidbey telecom has had for many years . it was announced in 2011 that whidbey telecom would offer television to customers at competitive rates to those offered by comcast . the service will utilize microsoft mediaroom iptv technology to deliver television over the dsl service . the service was launched in the summer of 2013 with great fanfare and quickly became the dominant player in the community largely due to competitive pricing and local support services . the service is cost competitive with the other terrestrial options and continues to expand offerings and service areas . it is currently limited to south whidbey and not all of south whidbey qualifies due to the dedicated bandwidth required for television not being easily available in some pockets but upgrades are being made to the network to bring the whidbeytv s service areas in line with those of internet & broadband . rebranding edit in 2004 whidbey telephone company decided to consolidate its operations under a single name whidbey telecom . this new identity was previewed at the island county fair and was officially launched in september . whidbey.net became whidbey telecom internet and broadband western long distance became whidbey telecom long distance american alarm systems inc. became whidbey telecom security and alarms service area and exchanges edit all operate in area code 360 whidbey island edit any new customers or lines are assigned numbers based on geographic location but customers are no longer required to change prefix when moving between service areas . clinton 341 freeland 331 langley 221 bayview 321 locales outside of the service area with a south whidbey number foreign exchange 321 maxwellton beach scatchet head and sandy hook cultus bay 579 bells beach baby island beverly beach 730 greenbank 222 point roberts edit all areas 945 hat gedney island edit all areas 444 whidbey telecom also has a 729 prefix if additional numbers are needed . external links edit whidbey telecom website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title whidbey telecom & oldid 728816827 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