News: Greenwood Telephone Co. (Updating - Jun 1968)

Contact: Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon
E-mail: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org 

Surnames: Niemi

----Source: Clark County Press (Neillsville, Clark Co., WI) 6/13/1968

Greenwood Telephone Company (Updating - June1968)

The first leg in a two-leg procedure in updating the Greenwood Telephone Company was completed last week with the cutting over of 170 subscribers to new lines, Mrs. Edythe Niemi, manager, has announced.

In all cases the new phones will carry new numbers. To reduce confusion resulting, the Greenwood exchange has issued a temporary directory covering these new numbers.

The second leg of the cut-over is scheduled for completion by the end of October, Mrs. Niemi told the Clark County Press.

The change-over at Greenwood is unique in Wisconsin in that the up-dating has been done in accordance with the desires of the subscribers. When the company petitioned for updating to the state public service commission a little more than a year ago, it carried the results of a survey taken to determine what kind of service its subscribers wanted. The company asked that it be permitted to follow the subscribers’ desires to the letter, and the commission agreed to go along with the unusual request. It was the first time that the commission had been presented with a poll of that type taken of all subscribers then on Greenwood lines.

As a result, in the 170 cut-over last week, 41 went on one-party lines, 56 went on four-party lines and 73 went on multi-party lines. Previously all had been on multi-party service, with up to eight phones on each line.