Raymond and Elyme Rauh incorporated the Metamora Telephone Company in the exchange boundaries of Metamora and Germantown Hills, IL. At the time of purchase, Metamora Telephone Company had 746 customers and began substantial upgrades and expansion once materials became available after World War II.
The business was operated out of a house, where the Rauh family took up residence. In the early 1950s no one could make a direct call themselves. Calls had to be made with the assistance of a telephone operator. A person wishing to make a call would pick up the handset on their phone and wait for the operator to answer.
An Automatic Electric step-by-step dial office was installed in Metamora in 1958. This allowed calls to be automatically routed instead of having an operator route the calls. The year 1958 also brought the end of an era, when operations moved from the house to a new office building, built adjacent to the Rauh family home. During the 1960s, a system of manholes and ducts was extended from the Metamora central office to provide service in the outlying rural areas.
With significant growth of the area, an office building expansion occurred and more than doubled the operations capacity. Also, computers were introduced into the operations, vastly increasing efficiencies.
Founder and President Raymond Rauh retired and turned operations over to his three sons, John, Glenn, and Allen Rauh. And the 3rd generation joined the business.
On January 1, 1987, the purchase of Marseilles Telephone Company was finalized, becoming the second MTCO company. This is also the year MTCO installed digital switches in the Metamora and Germantown Hills offices, increasing capacity and phone service features.
MTCO diversified and started offering paging service and became a premier provider in Central Illinois, as well as expanding to offer businesses state-of-the-art telephone key systems.
MTCO looked to the future and diversified by offering dial-up Internet service to small and large communities in the area. By the end of 2003, MTCO offered local Internet service to seventy communities.
MTCO began offering high-speed DSL Internet services in 2001, and then began offering high-speed Fiber-Optic fed services in 2007.
MTCO installed a 75-mile Fiber-Optic link between its offices in Metamora and Marseilles to complete a Fiber-Optic connection between Metamora and Chicago to prepare for future consumer services, content, and bandwidth needs. This enabled MTCO to then launch its own digital TV service.
MTCO expanded and started a multi-year project to build a 100% fiber-optic network in the city of Washington, IL.
MTCO employs over seventy local team members in the communities that we serve. As we grow, we remain committed to providing the best service experience for our customers, all backed by our local customer care team to provide exceptional customer service and technical support.
