FMTC started in the early 1900’s, when local Fruitland residents recognized the need for more effective communications. They established a telephone cooperative, working together to install telephone poles, lines and a manual telephone switchboard. This cooperative effort has been the guiding theme of FMTC since the beginning — we’ve always worked together to keep up with the latest technology and we’ve done it independently.

In 1956 FMTC made the leap to dial, installing a switching system that allowed customers to place their own calls. As a result, we retired the need for a manual switchboard and central operator who had, up to that point, made every connection between telephone customers.

By 1979, we became the first telecommunications company in Idaho with a digital switching system, and not long after were able to discontinue the need for party lines.

More recently in 2017, we became a residential Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) provider, once again leading the way to new technology in our area. VoIP brings a quality telephone voice connection as an Over the Top (OTT) service through our customers’ internet connection. This provides a cost savings for customers and enables us to offer free calling features, which includes making the first 500 minutes of long distance in the Continental United States free each month.

Also in 2017, as part of our Fiber to the Home (FTTH) expansion project, we rolled out Gig Internet — (1,000 megabits per second), which is offered in locations we have fiber available to residential and business customers. This project is well underway and we expect coverage to reach over 90 percent of the area by the end of 2019. Fiber optics provides our customers with the broadband speed they need while ensuring a world-class internet user experience.