JACKSON — When marketing manager Melissa Lanzourakis arrived at Northeast Nebraska Telephone Co. a little over six years ago, she said the business sold a lot of slow internet packages because they were the cheapest.
“People always bought the cheapest internet packages, but that meant it was the slowest, so people weren’t really experiencing what our service had to offer,” Lanzourakis said.
Now, Northeast Nebraska Telephone Co. has been on a growth spurt over the past five years and is in a thriving time as an all-fiber company.
“When you are an all-fiber internet company, you really have a robust system to allow people to have the best internet experience,” Lanzourakis said. “I mean, we are talking better experiences. … I have customers that tell me constantly like if they are working from home, they are nominated to start the Zoom meeting because they know their network connection will allow for that to keep it going for the whole hour long.
“We just really strive to have a very good product, and that is why people stay with us. We have customers that have been with us 40 years, and we want to continue to grow. Some of our communities are growing, and we just want to be their service provider.”
Northeast Nebraska Telephone Co. is a telephone, television and internet service provider based in Jackson that has been around since 1955, serving 30 communities throughout 24 counties in Northeast Nebraska.
It is one of just seven telephone company cooperatives in the state.
Since 2019, Northeast Nebraska Telephone Co. has attracted more than 1,000 new subscribers.
“I would say that is a pretty big impact on our customer base,” Lanzourakis said. “Everyone gets the fastest speed that they can get. … Since you get the fastest speed available, you just pay for the internet you used per gigabit. We have also gotten some pretty big state grants here in the last year or two, and we have our application for another one.”
Lanzourakis said that’s paved the way for faster internet access in such rural areas as Boyd County and elsewhere.
“It is really outstanding, especially when you live in a rural area and don’t have access, a lot of people in Nebraska still don’t have access to high-speed internet or internet at all,” she said. “I have met people in our expansion areas that don’t get internet at all. And so providing that service I think just is outstanding. You aren’t going to suffer with buffering. You just are going to have great internet experience. And when people don’t think about us, that means we are doing a good job.”
Most of the company’s subscriptions are for internet service. Television is down because so many people are cutting the cord for TV and switching to streaming, but the company still has about a quarter of its customers on television.
“We still have a lot of people using home-line phone, too, because cell service isn’t always reliable in rural areas,” Lanzourakis said. “We serve some of the most rural areas of Nebraska where we might have one customer per mile.”
Northeast Nebraska Telephone Co. reaches out to such communities by providing free Wi-Fi at many events — including the Clearwater rodeo, Dixon County Fair and a volleyball tournament in Craig.
“We provide free Wi-Fi with our Wi-Fi trailer — which is a big impact on the community,” Lanzourakis said.
“I would say we are still striving to reach out even more because we are expanding into new areas,” Lanzourakis said. “We don’t just sit back and relax. We are very active in meeting new customers (and) trying to get back customers that might have left us.”
Northeast Nebraska Telephone Co. is also cooperative by paying back customers dividends every year.
“We have been paying back since 1990 and just last year in December, we paid back $4.7 million to our customer base,” Lanzourakis said. “That is a huge way we give back to our community, that we pay our customer back.”
As a rural provider, Lanzourakis said the company is growing right now, expanding in Dakota County, Antelope County and Butler County.
“We are focused on expanding in some areas right now that we have gotten grants … given to the state by the federal government to expand broadband in areas that don’t have it,” she said. “This came about because of the pandemic when people all of a sudden needed internet to go to school, to work, so the federal government gave the states a lot of money to be able to expand broadband in their states.”
As Northeast Nebraska Telephone Co. has been around since 1955 and, considering that it has the lowest operating cost of any telephone company in the state, Lanzourakis said she feels great about the future with the company.
“We really do strive to make sure the network is good, that the service is great, customer service is great, … and up to date on what is happening in the world of telecom,” she said. “We project 10, 20, 30 years out of where we are going to be. So, we definitely look forward to the future and continuing service for our customers. We have been around for around 69 years now. We can’t wait to celebrate 100 some day.”
Tyler Fields is your internet guru, delving into the latest trends, developments, and issues shaping the online world. With a focus on internet culture, cybersecurity, and emerging technologies, Tyler keeps readers informed about the dynamic landscape of the internet and its impact on our digital lives.
