New telephone service now available
The City of Cairo’s new telephone service is up and running City Manager Chris Addleton reported to members of the mayor and council Monday night.
Following in the footsteps of Thomasville, Camilla and Pelham, the City of Cairo is offering residential telephone service through its CNS Cable infrastructure utilizing Voice Over Internet Protocol technology.
The city has already installed the phone service to 47 new telephone customers and, according to Addleton, and has another 75 subscribers on a waiting list.
The city manager updated the council on subscribers being able to keep their existing telephone numbers during the discussions this week.
According to Addleton, the city and Windstream have entered into an agreement that must be approved by the Georgia Public Service Commission.
The PSC will meet on November 26 and is expected to approve the portability agreement which will allow new CNS telephone subscribers to maintain their existing home phone number.
“We have a good many people who move around a lot who do not mind a new number, but probably 80 percent of our potential customers want to keep their existing number,” Addleton said.
Addleton says the new phone system is working well and no problems reported.
The council projected selling subscriptions to 300 telephone customers in the first year, but Addleton believes 500 customers in the first year is easily obtainable.
“We can reasonably handle about 20 new installations a week that’s what we averaged since we went live about two weeks ago,” the city manager said.
The city was able to expand its CNS services to include telephone at a minimal cost because the service utilizes existing infrastructure and technology.
The addition of telephone will also give the city a competitive edge in offering a bundle of services including cable, Internet and telephone similar to what is already being done by both Windstream and MediaCom.
Anyone interested in learning more about CNS telephone or wish to subscribe call 229-307-0332 and speak with Val Heard or Carla Bowling.
