Pine Belt News

Wilcox Crappie Tournament

Tickets are on sale at the following ticket outlets: In Camden, McDonald’s Grocery & Sports, Coast to Coast, Loftin’s Bait Shop, Headz Outdoors, Roland Cooper State Park, Bone’s Grocery, Travis’s General Store. In Thomasville, see Dunn’s Sports. In Alberta/Gee’s Bend, see Abram’s Store. Tournament tickets are $30 adult and $15 youth, under 16 years old. Derby tickets are $10 adult and $5 youth.

There are a few changes in this year’s event to point out. The secondary weigh-in location for the Tournament has been moved from Bridgeport Landing to the Roland Cooper State Park (on the point, down the hill from the pavilion.) For the Derby, there will be a $25,000 fish, $10,000 fish, and three $5,000 fish. Each of these is double tagged. All the prior year tagged fish are worth $50. The change this year in the Derby will be how the single tag, current year fish are valued. The current year, single tagged fish will be worth $100 each with the following exceptions: the 5th fish is worth $250, the $10th fish is worth $500, the 15th fish is worth $750, and the 20th fish is worth $1000.

Pine Belt Announces 5 & 6 Year Old Roster

Pine Belt proudly announces its roster for the 2013 baseball season!

Pine Belt Wireless 5/6  boys baseball team has now been through the draft and the following are our players for the season:

1. Braiden Baswell (Beth Caver's son)
2. Braxton Coley (Richard’s step-son) 
3. Jude Assaad
4. Tommie Belcher
5. Jerry Edwards
6. Eric Johnson
7. Cody Jones
8. Caine McLaughlin
9. Byron Oliver
10. Tristan Real
11. Christian Stevens
12. Nicholas Thomas
13. Kendarious Myles

We hope to have a great season and for the boys to have fun in the process!

Beth Caver

Pine Belt Wireless

Selma Store Manager

334-878-8000

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Homeland Security Advice

Click here for a link to a short video produced by the Alabama Department of Homeland Security.  

Our prayer is that none of us will ever need to heed this advice.  

Help Us Work on the Rural Call Completion Problem

PINE BELT TELEPHONE IS WORKING TO HELP SOLVE THE RURAL CALL COMPLETION PROBLEM

(Arlington, AL) – According to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), rural consumers are reporting significant problems receiving long distance or wireless calls on their landline telephones.  Typical "failure to complete" symptoms include the following:

• Long distance or wireless callers tell you they repeatedly hear nothing or "dead air" for 10 seconds or more after they dial your number. If they stay on the line, the call may seem to be dropped or they may eventually hear a busy signal.
• Long distance or wireless callers tell you they repeatedly hear prolonged ringing on their end after they dial your number (e.g., the callers wait 10-20 rings before they finally hang up).
• Long distance or wireless callers tell you they repeatedly hear a recording such as "The number you have dialed is not in service" or "Your call cannot be completed as dialed" when they know they've correctly dialed your number.

Rural customers also report "poor call quality" problems. Typical symptoms include the following:

• Long distance or wireless callers tell you they repeatedly hear nothing or "dead air" for 10 seconds or more before hearing ringing and you answer your phone.
• Long distance or wireless callers tell you they repeatedly hear prolonged ringing (e.g., 10-20 times or more) before you answer the phone -- when you are sure the phone actually rang only a couple of times before you answered.
• Consistently after you answer a call, the voice quality is unacceptable. For example, one person cannot hear the other, the sound is choppy, there are awkward transmission delays after speaking, or there is an echo.

John Nettles, President of Pine Belt Telephone, said “These problems result from some long distance and wireless carriers using third parties to carry their calls to Rural America.  Despite having strictly-defined performance parameters, it appears that all too frequently those performance levels are not being met and often the calls are not even connecting at all as a result of the third parties attempts to avoid costs and wanton disregard for the FCC rules.  To help combat the issue we have started working with other companies that primarily serve Rural America to record and report such incidents.  But, we have quickly learned that we cannot do it alone.  Since the ultimate cause of the problem is on the originating end of the call which means a party that is not our customers, we have found there is little we can do to get the offending party engaged in resolving the issue.  And, we have been advised what we should ask our our customers and with the friends, family and associates that are calling them to report to the FCC any such problems when it is experienced.  With the help of our customers, I am sure these problems can be fixed” Nettles added.

Reporting problems is easy and can be done online by visiting a special web site set up by the FCC for just that purpose.  If you or those calling you experience a problem, you are encouraged to file a report by going to: http://transition.fcc.gov/eb/rcc/#XX2.  “With the support of all rural telephone customers, rural telephone companies and the FCC can get this problem solved,” concluded Nettles.

Pine Belt is a family owned and operated company with deep roots in Wilcox and surrounding counties.  The company has been providing landline based services to Arlington, Dixons Mills, Sweet Water and Nanafalia for over 50 years.  The company was founded by Dr. James D. (Buddy) Nettles in 1958 and remains family owned and 100% dedicated to the needs of the citizens of this area. 

Pine Belt Wireless started its mobile telephone operations in 1995 and is licensed by the FCC to provide mobile telephone services for the five counties of Choctaw, Marengo, Dallas, Perry & Wilcox covering a population in excess of 110,000 via its digital network on 47 towers. Additionally, Pine Belt Wireless maintains cooperative relationships with two of the top four national carriers allowing its customers to benefit from being able to use their “home based” services nationwide without excessive roaming charges

Pine Belt has also recently expanded its locally managed wired service offering into Grove Hill, Whatley, Butler and Lisman.  This expansion took effect in July 2012 via the acquisition of certain cable assets thereby allowing the company to offer digital video and broadband data services in these areas. 

The Pine Belt Companies are headquartered in Arlington, Alabama, at 3984 County Road 32. To learn more about Pine Belt Wireless services, call Pine Belt headquarters at 334-385-2106 or visit a Pine Belt Wireless Store. For more information on Pine Belt visit www.pinebeltTALK.com.