LocalTel expands into Grant County market

MOSES LAKE — Residential and business internet provider LocalTel is big enough to offer 24-hour customer service, yet small enough to make it personal. With that, the Wenatchee-based business decided to enter the Moses Lake market, providing a great deal of its services to rural customers.

LocalTel, at 223 E. Broadway, has been serving Douglas County since 1984 and now offers a wide range of services including internet, television, telephone and security at its Grant County location in Moses Lake.

“In the areas that have fiber, there is no reason not to have fiber, because it’s fast. It’s reliable and it’s cheap,” LocalTel manager Herman Schreven said. “But fiber is in the urban areas. As soon as you leave the city limits, there is no fiber optic structure there and that’s where we step in with our wireless service and we provide those customers with service and internet. It’s not to be confused with Wi-Fi; we have towers on all the high spots around the area.”

LocalTel Grant County has six technicians in Moses Lake to install and handle problem solving, but where it excels, Schreven said, is in its customer service.

“The thing that sets us apart is that we are local, so if you need to talk to someone you’re not going to get passed to a switchboard in New York or some call center in India,” he said. “We are small enough to be a good neighbor with friendly service, but big enough in Wenatchee that we can provide 24-hour customer service. We do business the way people expect it to be.

“We have people that come in here and pay their bill in cash. We don’t have contracts, so if you think you can get a better deal and want to leave, you can cancel without any strings.”

The primary focus for LocalTel Grant County is internet service, but they install and maintain television and telephone service, as well as security.

“Internet is internet and it’s pretty much the same wherever you go. But if you go with our TV, we do have features that no one else has,” Schreven said. “The two big features are Restart and Playback. If you get home at 5:15 and wanted to watch something that started at 5 p.m., you hit Restart and see it from the beginning.

“With the Playback, you can go back three days because it’s been recorded and you can pull it up and watch it. We accomplish that with really, really big servers. We record every program, and as far as we’re aware, no one else is offering.”

They also offer security services, cameras, monitors for both residences and businesses.

Rodney Harwood can be reached at rharwood@columbiabasinherald.com.