Armstrong Group of Companies
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2007) |
 |
|
| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1946 in Kittanning, Pennsylvania, USA |
| Headquarters |  Butler, Pennsylvania, USA |
| Industry | Telecommunications |
| Products | Cablecasting, Broadband Internet, VoIP |
| Employees | 2,000 |
| Website | [1] |
Contents |
[edit] History
Armstrong Group of Companies began in 1946 and was originally called Armstrong County Line Construction. Founded by Jud L. Sedwick, the company was headquartered in Kittanning, Armstrong County, in Pennsylvania. Together with is brother Ned, Sedwick ran two crews consisting of six men each, whose job consisted of hanging telephone lines, setting telephone poles, and clearing right of way throughout western Pennsylvania, and managed to grown the company to 12 crews by the end of their first year of operations.
In the 1950s, Armstrong began to acquire and operate independent telephone companies in the local areas, and expanded their involvement into the cable television industry in the 1960s. During the 1980s the company also began moving into security, restaurant ownership, and real estate development.
[edit] Today
Currently, Armstrong Group of Companies (AGOC) staffs over 2,300 people nationwide. The company is best known in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York, West Virginia, and Kentucky for its cable services, most commonly providing television and internet service. Their customer service and corporate offices are housed in Butler County, western Pennsylvania, with local offices scattered throughout the region and neighboring states. They now do all kinds of events such as the Big Butler Fair and the Butler Farm Show. They all are the leading company for their services in Butler County.
[edit] Services Offered
[edit] Armstrong Telephone Company
Originated in 1950 by purchasing Ritchie Telephone Company in Harrisville, West Virginia, Armstrong owns and operates independent telephone companies in West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York. These local offices are setup to provide local and long distance calling services, optional digital calling features, as well as dial-up and DSL Internet services. Recently, development of digital phone service has caused cable companies such as Armstrong to begin expanding their service areas and upgrading lines from traditional phone systems to a Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) system, where phone service is provided via fiber optic and coax cable traditionally reserved for television service. This service tends to allow the expansion of more features such as digital voicemail service, included caller ID, anonymous call rejection, ability to block phone numbers, as well as other features[citation needed], prompting fierce competition between traditional phone companies such as AT&T, Embark, and Windstream, as well as local cable providers.
[edit] Armstrong Cable
In 1963, the first cable television customers of Armstrong were connected in Butler, Pennsylvania. These customers were provided with nine viewing channels. For the next 40+ years Armstrong continued to grow in western Pennsylvania and the surrounding states virtually uncontested for television service until the expansion of satellite service became more widespread. With the increase in competitors, new services emerged. Today, Armstrong cable offers personal video recorders (PVR), video on demand service (VOD), pay-per-view service (PPV), as well as its newest addition of high-definition programming.
[edit] Armstrong Zoom
Armstrong also offers high speed internet service for residential and commercial purposes. Residential broadband services consist of Zoom 100 with 768 kbit/s download, 256 kbit/s upload, Zoom 500 with up to 8.0 Mbit/s download, 512 kbit/s upload, and Zoom Pro with 10.0 Mbit/s download, 1.5 Mbit/s upload. Also offered are business class accounts, with 12.0 Mbit/s download, 3.0 Mbit/s upload, in addition to access to normally blocked ports (such as FTP, SSH, HTTP).
