A History of Innovation: THEN

The past 75 years were punctuated with leaps forward, each year and decade a stepping stone toward the next innovation to bene t SRT members.

 

Our history as a cooperative of cially began September 29, 1951, when Souris River Telephone Mutual Aid Corporation led Articles of Incorporation. The very next year SRT purchased its rst phone exchange — the Martin Telephone Company with 82 subscribers. Two short years later SRT secured its rst loan and bought four more exchanges, and the momentum rolled on.

 

By the 60s SRT was serving Minot Air Force Base, our largest phone exchange at the time. We also shared the cooperative’s early success with members, sending out their rst capital credit checks. It was a decade of smart growth, sound business decisions, innovating services, and delivering critical communications.

 

Soon SRT was innovating beyond telephone. By 1980 the cooperative brought cable television service to the residents of Westhope, while the 90s ushered in Direct Broadcast Satellite TV. SRT continued to roll out the latest and greatest services with Security in 2008 and Dish Network in 2014.

 

In the meantime, the area and people we serve continued to expand. In 1994, SRT acquired Minot Telephone Company, adding roughly 25,000 lines in Minot, Burlington, and Surrey. Ten years later we acquired the cable TV systems in Newburg and Upham, increasing our total communities served to 18. We also welcomed Velva residents in 2007 after purchasing the exchange from North Dakota Telephone Company in Devils Lake.

 

The most transformative innovation so far, fiber optics brought unprecedented opportunity to even the most remote home in north-central North Dakota. In 2006 SRT deployed our first fiber-to the-premise in rural Lansford — a community of roughly 200 people that suddenly had the most powerful internet technology available. Owing to the determination of SRT’s Board of Directors and the ingenuity of our employees, SRT completed our rural fiber build by 2022 and Minot last year.