Brandon Zupancic

YEAR FOUNDED: 1904 (originally known as the Macksburg Mutual Telephone Association)

NUMBER OF LINES: 11,500

EMPLOYEES: 68

COMMUNITY: About 25 miles south of Portland, Canby is rural but is becoming a bedroom community for Portland. The population is increasing rapidly, experiencing 3% growth between 2006 and 2007.

POPULATION DENSITY: 137 access lines per square mile

ENHANCING FOCUS: “I started with the company earlier this year. My position is new. The idea is that I now have all of the different groups that have any IP platform, recognizing that the entire industry is heading to IP-based technology.”

BROADBAND AVAILABILITY: 98% — mostly DSL, but a new fiber deployment will reach 30% of customers by year-end and 85% of customers within two years.

BROADBAND TAKE RATE: 60%

BROADBAND DATA RATES: Up to 6 Mb/s, depending on distance — can be increased as bandwidth demand grows.

IPTV PIONEER: “We've offered IPTV for not quite three years. We've always been on the cutting edge. We were one of the early IPTV deployments and now we're one of the early MPEG 4 deployments. We joke that we're on the bleeding edge, but we definitely have the technology skill set to pull all these things together.”

IPTV OFFERING: About 150 standard-definition channels, along with 1000 video-on-demand (VOD) titles. Currently rolling out high definition and planning to add VOD titles by year-end.

IPTV TAKE RATE: 12%

BIGGEST BUSINESS CHALLENGE: “Wireless substitution. We're considered part of the Portland footprint so we do not have access to wireless spectrum. On the one hand, we're lucky because our line loss has been far below the industry standard, but nevertheless it's there. We were reselling wireless but were not able to get competitive packages, so we exited that business earlier this year. We're now pursuing some broadband wireless opportunities.”

BIGGEST TECHNOLOGY CHALLENGE: “IPTV because it's still evolving. It takes a pretty tremendous skill set to pull all the pieces together and make it work. We have a phenomenal IT department and one of the best headend technicians in the country. The challenge is pulling all these immature technologies together to make it work seamlessly.”

COMMUNITY SERVICE: Company donates .5% of gross revenues to about 30 community organizations.

AHEAD OF ITS TIME: In 1904, an associate membership cost $24 per phone per year — or $9 per year if customers provided their own phone.

USF FUNDING: Some for switching, but nothing for high-cost loops.