Rural phone service fund under siege

0 Comments | USA TODAY, January, 2005 | by Paul Davidson

Paul Reynolds was in cellphone Siberia. His cellphone worked fine in Sioux Falls, S.D., where he worked. But it was useless in his tiny hometown of Parker, 25 miles southwest.

Neither of the state's two main carriers -- Western Wireless, Reynolds' provider, and Verizon Wireless -- felt it would be profitable to build a cell tower in Parker, a farming town with 1,031 people.

So Reynolds, a building contractor who's on the phone constantly with subcontractors and customers, saw his workday routinely end 20 minutes or so earlier than he wished because his cellphone would go dead on the drive home.

Salvation came a year ago. That's when Western Wireless, bowing to pleas from community leaders and state regulators, completed a 265-foot, $245,000 tower just west of...