Sebastian Brings Service to Isolated Town Without Electricity

California telephone carrier Sebastian recently brought DSL and voice service to the community of Iowa Hill which previously not only lacked those services; it also has no electrical service. The community of about 250 people between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe traces its roots to the mid-19th century. Astonishingly, Iowa Hill was once under consideration to be the state capital. Today, like many isolated rural communities, it has many older residents -- and they were becoming increasingly concerned about the lack of communications. When the state of California created a grant program to extend telecommunications infrastructure to unserved areas, the local county applied and received a grant for $2.25 million to bring service to the community, explained Rhonda Armstrong, vice president of commercial operations for Sebastian. But the incumbent telco, one of the large nationwide companies, was unwilling to do the deployment. Fortunately, Sebastian had purchased phone lines in nearby Foresthill several years earlier and after arranging to annex Iowa Hill into its serving territory, Sebastian was able to take on the project.