In our office in Rockland we still have the original little Rockland phone switch on display; the current president, Leonard May, used to sit at that switch as a child, which was housed in his family’s own home, and act as the operator, and manually change plugs around to switch the calls. An alarm would ring each time there was a call, and somebody in the family would have to wake up to connect the caller. He bought the company from his father in 1974, and from 300 local subscribers then, we now serve over 10,000 customers with a range of communications products including local & long distance telephone service, mobile phone, VOIP, high-speed internet and cable TV.

We are leaders in independent communications, and pioneers in our industry.
For example, we were:
First to implement a digital switch in Idaho.
First to use fiber optic cable in telephone communications network in Southeast Idaho.
First to provide high-speed internet to rural southeast Idaho.
First to provide high-speed internet service to rural towns in the John Day Valley in Eastern Oregon.
First to install fiber optic cable to the home in Eastern Oregon.
First IP switch in Southeast Idaho.
First to offer DBS satellite in Southeast Idaho.
First to offer satellite internet in Southeast Idaho.
One of the first cellular offerings in Idaho.
Helped build the first and only state-wide fiber optic cable sonet network.

1998
Jeremy Smith, future manager of internet and TV services, hired at Direct Communications to build a delivery system for TV over wireless internet spectrum.
He successfully builds the network and eventually sells the system to Teton Wireless, which becomes a longtime partner of Direct Communications in delivering wireless internet to the metro areas of Idaho.

2004
Direct Communications purchased a number of floundering cable properties in rural Idaho--namely the towns of Bancroft, Downey, Georgetown, Grace, Lava Hot Springs, McCammon, Montpelier, and Paris, from Mallard Cable Vision, headquartered in Massachusetts. We, along with a few other Idaho independent telcos, formed Independent Cable Systems (ICS) of Idaho, to manage these cable properties.
We have succeeded in these rural areas where larger out-of-state companies have failed because of our commitment to invest in the local communities we serve. We upgraded, or in many places, replaced the entire cable plant, added internet service, added 60 digital cable channels and about 20 new analog channels, took down the old microwave towers and joined the towns together with fiber optic cable, and extended the network to add a number of new towns to our cable area. ICS is now a profitable, thriving business and is unique in Southeast Idaho as a locally-owned cable company.

2005
Direct Communications purchased the Aberdeen cable franchise from Cable One in November 2005, with the goal of investing in and improving the system, and believed we could turn the struggling cable company in Aberdeen around due to our expertise in managing communications for small towns. We had two strategic improvements to make—launch an ISP over the cable, and introduce a new local channel.
At the time, the residents of Aberdeen had no access to line-based High Speed Internet, since neither the local telephone company or Cable One had offered an ISP there in the past. By the summer of 2006 we had completed the necessary investments and upgrades needed to offer high-speed internet over the cable system, and launched that product in August, offering speeds up to 2Mbps at an affordable price, which was unprecedented in Aberdeen. We now offer up to 5Meg speeds.

In 2006 we also enhanced the TV channel line-up, adding five new channels, one of which was a new local channel dedicated to broadcasting community events, which we set up within days of the purchase. For example, Aberdeen High School sports games are now being broadcast on Direct Communications Cable, channel 99, appropriately named The Aberdeen Channel.

We hire our first marketing director.

2006
January 2007 saw the momentous occasion of the official acquisition by Direct Communications of Eagle Mountain Telecom, previously owned by Eagle Mountain City in Utah. This was a sale 5 years in the works.
Direct Communications learned about Eagle Mountain Telecom in 2000 at an industry event. We developed a relationship with EMT offering assistance when we could. We were always interested in acquiring EMT, as we could see the enormous growth potential, but it was not until November, 2001 that Eagle Mountain decided it wanted to sell the utility.
The major challenges were twofold: 1.) Establishing a rate base. In this industry companies are regulated based upon their assets. The different accounting procedures of a municipality from a telephone company created some major difficulties in establishing what the assets were and whether or not Direct could recover on those assets. 2.) The regulatory challenge of taking a non-regulated telephone company operating without a Certificate of Convenience and Necessity within Qwest’s certificated area and turning it into a regulated incumbent local exchange carrier with its own certificated area. It required state and federal regulatory approval from the Utah PSC and the FCC as well as Qwest had to be willing to change their service territory to accommodate Direct’s new property in Eagle Mountain. Much of this work was acomplished by Kip Wilson, first general manager of Direct Communications Cedar Valley, who afterwards stated: "I am pretty proud that we were able to accomplish that feat. Leonard recognized it was a problem and always said: 'problems need solutions, and if we stay the course we are the most likely solution.'”

2007
In January 2007, Direct Communications, along with four other local, long-standing, Idaho telephone companies, announced the opening of Syringa Wireless, LLC, a mobile phone company. Each member company owns 20% of Syringa Wireless and has a member on the board of directors. Garrin Bott, who sits on the Syringa board for Direct Communications, explained: “We have a proud history of bringing new technologies to rural Idaho, so helping launch Syringa Wireless seemed a natural step for our company to take. Being able to offer a great product like this to the folks of southeast Idaho is a result of years of collaboration with our friends at the other independent phone companies in Idaho, and a testament to the value that partnerships between local companies can create.”

On March 31, 2007, Direct Communications officially bought the Preston cable franchise from Comcast. Jeremy Smith, general manager of cable services for Direct Communications, explained that the sale would be benefit all parties involved. “It made a lot more sense for us to take over service for Preston, because managing a small, remote system simply wasn’t efficient anymore for a large company like Comcast. We, on the other hand, specialize in serving rural towns, and will be able to offer new services here that will make life better for the residents of Preston.
In October of 2007, we completed laying fiber optic cable to Preston, which connected Preston directly to Idaho’s state-wide fiber-optic backbone, and Preston was finally connected directly to the world. In the past, the only way to get traffic out of Preston was wirelessly, but once we brought fiber to the valley, even Qwest began to lease access from us. Direct Communications plans eventually to connect Preston’s cable system directly to the rest of our ICS cable network, which will bring digital programming available in Preston, and potential for hundreds of new TV channels.

2007 also saw the owners of Direct Communications acquire a new telephone property in New Florence, Missouri, which is now operated from our corporate office in Rockland.

In September 2007, we opened an experimental service store, to sell communications services, namely cable TV, VOIP and internet, as well as Syringa Wireless phone service, in our test market of Aberdeen.

We hire our first official sales manager and account executives.