The Year in Words

In many cases, a picture truly is worth a thousand words. But there was no way we could show you the actual pictures inside the heads of the industry experts consulted for the following series of articles. Not without killing them first.

So, we assigned five of our writers the task of crafting six stories that described the pictures different organizational leaders in the rural telecom space had in their own heads about 2007. We have condensed them here and put one online, but have necessarily preserved some of the redundancy. For if one industry expert says something is true, it's an opinion. If several industry experts say something is true, it's likely a consensus.

Here then is a collage of perspectives brought to you in living color from experts at the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association, the National Exchange Carrier Association, the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative, the Organization for the Protection and Advancement of Small Telephone Companies, the NTCA's wireless group (which is online) and CoBank.

These organizations will also relate how they will try to bring the pictures in their heads into the light of day and turn them into meaningful action. You may want to don your Foster Grants.

next page: NRTC arms telcos for cable war