Draft:Smithville Communications
Submission declined on 12 September 2026 by Thilsebatti (talk).
Where to get help
How to improve a draft
You can also browse Wikipedia:Featured articles and Wikipedia:Good articles to find examples of Wikipedia's best writing on topics similar to your proposed article. Improving your odds of a speedy review To improve your odds of a faster review, tag your draft with relevant WikiProject tags using the button below. This will let reviewers know a new draft has been submitted in their area of interest. For instance, if you wrote about a female astronomer, you would want to add the Biography, Astronomy, and Women scientists tags. Editor resources
This draft has been resubmitted and is currently awaiting re-review. |  |
 | Review waiting, please be patient.
This may take 4 weeks or more, since drafts are reviewed in no specific order. There are 2,319 pending submissions waiting for review.
Where to get help
How to improve a draft
You can also browse Wikipedia:Featured articles and Wikipedia:Good articles to find examples of Wikipedia's best writing on topics similar to your proposed article. Improving your odds of a speedy review To improve your odds of a faster review, tag your draft with relevant WikiProject tags using the button below. This will let reviewers know a new draft has been submitted in their area of interest. For instance, if you wrote about a female astronomer, you would want to add the Biography, Astronomy, and Women scientists tags. Editor resources
Reviewer tools
|
| Formerly | Monroe County Telephone Company Smithville Telephone Company |
|---|---|
| Type | Private |
| Industry | Telecommunications |
| Founded | 1922 in Smithville, Indiana, U.S. |
| Founder | J. K. Johnston |
| Headquarters | Ellettsville, Indiana, U.S. |
Area served | Central and south-central Indiana; northeastern Arkansas |
| Key people | Darby A. McCarty (chairman and CEO) Cullen H. McCarty (CEO, Smithville Telecom) |
| Products | Fiber-optic internet, voice, streaming television, home security |
Number of employees | c. 200 (2019) |
| Website | www |
Smithville Communications, Inc. is a privately held telecommunications company headquartered in Ellettsville, Indiana, United States. Founded in 1922 as a telephone service for limestone quarry operations in Monroe County, the company operates a fiber-optic network serving residential, business and institutional customers in central and south-central Indiana, and owns a telephone company in Arkansas. It has been described by the Indianapolis Business Journal as the largest independently owned telephone company in Indiana.[1]
The company has been controlled by the same family since the 1930s, passing through the Draper, Earles and McCarty surnames.[1] It began converting its network from copper to fiber in 2008 under a federally financed expansion.[1] A related company, Smithville Telecom, LLC, serves Indiana markets outside Smithville's traditional incumbent local exchange carrier territory.[2]
History
[edit]Origins and early operations (1922–1973)
[edit]The company was founded in 1922 by J. K. Johnston in Smithville, Monroe County, to provide telephone communication among the county's limestone quarries, which required coordination across dispersed extraction sites. Johnston established three exchanges, at Clear Creek, Smithville and Ellettsville.[3][1] The business was originally named the Monroe County Telephone Company and was renamed the Smithville Telephone Company in 1952.[4]
Guy A. Draper acquired the company in 1930; the Draper family retained a controlling interest thereafter.[3][1] In addition to telephone service, the company supplied electric service in parts of Monroe County until the 1950s, when it exited that business.[1]
Byron A. Draper succeeded his father in 1942. During his tenure the company extended its exchange network into 14 central and south-central Indiana counties through acquisitions, including the Gosport exchange in Owen County in 1955, the Star Telephone Company at French Lick in 1958, and eight further properties — at Hymera, Lyons, Marco, Switz City, Sharpsville, Goldsmith, Griffin and Lizton — in 1960. Cooperative and mutual telephone companies in Greene County were absorbed during the 1960s. The company converted its party line exchanges to individual dial-tone service during the same period.[3]
Digital conversion and early fiber (1974–2002)
[edit]Patricia A. Earles, daughter of Byron Draper, became president and chairman in 1974. Beginning in 1980 the company converted its twelve exchanges from analog to digital switching, a program completed in 1991.[3]
Also in 1991, Smithville built its first fiber-optic rings, linking its Ellettsville, Stanford and Smithville switching centers to the Indiana Bell facility in Bloomington.[3] The company began offering dial-up Internet access in 1996.[3] William H. Earles succeeded his wife as president and chairman in 1998, adding long-distance service and, in 2000, DSL service in partnership with BlueMarble Telecom, which acted as the internet service provider while Smithville supplied the local network.[3]
Fiber expansion (2003–2013)
[edit]Darby A. McCarty, daughter of William Earles, became president, chairman and chief executive in 2003, and the company formed a data and internet division, Smithville Digital, later renamed Smithville Fiber.[3][1]
In 2008 Smithville began a network overbuild, replacing copper with fiber to the premises, financed largely through loans from the federal Rural Utilities Service; the program was valued at $90 million and initially offered residential speeds of up to 100 Mbit/s and business speeds of up to 1 Gbit/s.[1] In the same year the city of Columbus, Indiana, contracted with Smithville to build and operate its municipal fiber network; an earlier bid for a contract with Fishers was unsuccessful.[1] Lizton, in Hendricks County, became the first town wired entirely with fiber to the door, in 2011.[1]
The company extended fiber to commercial and institutional customers including hospitals, banks, law firms, schools and manufacturing plants, among them the Cummins engine plant at Walesboro and facilities at the WestGate@Crane Technology Park adjacent to the Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division.[1] In late 2010 Smithville Holding Co. agreed to acquire Rice Belt Telephone, an Arkansas telephone company, its only out-of-state acquisition.[1][3] Smithville began offering residential gigabit service in 2013.[5]
Rural expansion and succession (2014–present)
[edit]In 2015 Smithville and the city of Jasper, Indiana, entered a public–private partnership to build a citywide fiber-to-the-premises network offering symmetrical gigabit service; the project was completed in 2021.[6][3] The company also upgraded its enterprise transport network to 100 Gbit/s capacity in 2015.[7]
From 2019 Smithville received grants under Indiana's Next Level Connections broadband program for fiber construction, including projects in Howard and Tipton counties.[8] In the early 2020s the company formed fiber construction partnerships with rural electric membership cooperatives in southern Indiana, an arrangement between an incumbent telephone company and electric cooperatives that trade press described as an unusual deployment model.[9][10] A joint build with South Central Indiana REMC extended service into rural Monroe and Owen counties.[11] In 2023 the company announced approximately $10 million in rural fiber construction in southern Indiana, including a 382-home expansion near Stinesville in western Monroe County.[12]
On July 1, 2024, Cullen H. McCarty, son of Darby McCarty and a long-serving employee, was appointed chief executive of Smithville Telecom, LLC, under a succession plan the two had developed in 2021. Darby McCarty remained chairman of both companies and chief executive of Smithville Communications, while Cullen McCarty also continued as executive vice president of Smithville Communications.[13][2]
Corporate structure and leadership
[edit]Smithville Communications is the incumbent local exchange carrier for its traditional service territory. Smithville Telecom, LLC, a related company, provides commercial and residential service in Indiana markets outside that territory.[2] Rice Belt Telephone, acquired in 2010, operates in Arkansas.[3] The company does not disclose revenue.[1]
Leadership has passed within one family since 1930: Guy A. Draper (1930–1942), Byron A. Draper (1942–1973), Patricia A. Earles (1974–1998), William H. Earles (1998–2003) and Darby A. McCarty (2003–present).[3] Paul Quick has served as president of both Smithville Communications and Smithville Telecom since November 2018.[2] The company reported approximately 200 employees in 2019.[14]
In 2019 Darby McCarty was named an inaugural "Broadband Hero" by the trade association USTelecom.[14] Smithville has appeared on the annual fiber-to-the-home Top 100 list published by the trade magazine Broadband Communities.[15][1]
Network and services
[edit]Smithville operates a fiber-to-the-premises network in central and south-central Indiana, serving communities including Bloomington, Ellettsville, Bedford, Jasper, French Lick and Sharpsville.[16] The residential network delivers symmetrical service at up to 1 Gbit/s over a dedicated fiber connection, without data caps.[16] The company has used equipment from Calix for portions of its fiber-to-the-home deployment.[17]
Residential offerings include internet access, local and long-distance voice service, a streaming television product introduced in 2009, and monitored home security. A managed home networking option supplies a Wi-Fi 6 router together with vendor-supplied network security and parental-control software and a subscriber management application.[16][3]
Business and institutional services include dedicated internet access, point-to-point fiber circuits, distributed denial-of-service mitigation, hosted voice and SIP trunking, commercial security systems, and fiber service to multi-dwelling units. The company also supplies fiber connectivity to schools, healthcare facilities, government entities and technology parks.[16][3]
References
[edit]- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Andrews, Greg (November 12, 2012). "Out-of-the-way telecom company to branch into Indy". Indianapolis Business Journal. Retrieved September 17, 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 "McCarty named Smithville Telecom CEO". Inside INdiana Business. July 1, 2024. Retrieved September 17, 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 "About Smithville". Smithville Communications. Retrieved September 17, 2026.
- ↑ "Member Spotlight: Darby McCarty of Smithville Communications". USTelecom. January 2, 2020. Retrieved September 17, 2026.
- ↑ "Smithville Fiber expands gigabit". Telecompetitor. Retrieved September 17, 2026.
- ↑ "Smithville Communications and City of Jasper embark on gigabit public-private partnership". Telecompetitor. January 20, 2015. Retrieved September 17, 2026.
- ↑ "Smithville Fiber launches $4.5 million network upgrade". Telecompetitor. November 16, 2015. Retrieved September 17, 2026.
- ↑ "Gov. Holcomb announces more than $22 million for broadband expansion". GreatNews.Life. Retrieved September 17, 2026.
- ↑ "Latest telco and electric cooperative fiber broadband partnership offers a unique model". Telecompetitor. Retrieved September 17, 2026.
- ↑ "Another telecom-electric broadband partnership formed in Indiana". Telecompetitor. Retrieved September 17, 2026.
- ↑ "SCI REMC, Smithville continue to bring fiber internet to customers". Spencer Evening World. August 30, 2022. Retrieved September 17, 2026.
- ↑ "Ellettsville-based Smithville expanding rural high-speed internet". The Herald-Times. Bloomington, Indiana. November 7, 2023. Retrieved September 17, 2026.
- ↑ "Cullen McCarty named CEO of Smithville Telecom, LLC". Broadband Communities. July 11, 2024. Retrieved September 17, 2026.
- 1 2 "Smithville: Chairman & CEO Darby McCarty named national 'Broadband Hero'". Indiana Chamber of Commerce. October 2019. Retrieved September 17, 2026.
- ↑ "Broadband Communities releases the 2025 Top 100 list". Broadband Communities. 2025. Retrieved September 17, 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 "Internet". Smithville Communications. Retrieved September 17, 2026.
- ↑ "Smithville selects Calix for ongoing FTTH build". Telecompetitor. Retrieved September 17, 2026.
External links
[edit]Category:Telecommunications companies of the United States Category:Telecommunications companies established in 1922 Category:Companies based in Indiana Category:Monroe County, Indiana Category:American companies established in 1922 Category:1922 establishments in Indiana Category:Family-owned companies of the United States
Wikipedia articles must be written neutrally in a formal, impersonal, and dispassionate way. They should not read like a blog post, advertisement, or fan page. Rewrite the draft to remove:
Instead, only summarize in your own words a range of independent, reliable, published sources that discuss the subject.
If you have a conflict of interest (e.g. you are the subject, an employee, or a relative) or are being paid to edit, you must disclose this to comply with Wikipedia's Terms of Use.