Published in the Interest of the Staunton Community for Over 143 Years
Published in the Interest of the Staunton Community for Over 143 Years
Pictured from (L to R) from Madison Communications: V.P. of Construction Services, Stephen Schwartz; V.P. of Network Operations, Len Schwartz; V.P. and Chief Financial Officer, Mary Westerhold; as well as the Marketing and Social Media Coordinator, Lexy Hagler.
By Lynn and Nancy Neuhaus
Madison Communications has been an evolving company since its inception. Owners Len Schwartz, Mary Westerhold and Stephen Schwartz have created a business plan and management philosophy for the company to grow. The owners also sit on State and National Boards to make sure the rural voice is heard and have the same capabilities of urban areas. With the steady increase of remote jobs, remote education, and artificial intelligence on the horizon a reliable communication system is essential. It is difficult to manage a company through two generations of family members owning a business, however, Madison Communications is proudly starting its fourth generation of family involvement.
Schwartz, a pharmacist from Edwardsville, Ill., purchased Madison Telephone Co. in 1985. In 1998 the company purchased Macoupin County Cablevision and a few years later added several telephone exchanges. The company has grown from five employees in the mid '80s; two office personnel and three plant workers, to 57 local, talented, and hardworking individuals working from the current location today. They are another Staunton company that is providing steady employment and careers with top-tier benefits.
The company covers an area from Carlinville to Edwardsville and from Shipman to New Douglas. In order to provide customers with worldwide reliable connectivity, they use large data servers in St. Louis and Chicago. In the late '80s, fiber was fed from a communication building some distance away to a town. Next, in the early 2000's fiber was fed from two to three miles from the customer, currently there are 25 nodes in Staunton which provide the coax system to residents. Soon fiber optics will take the system past the 25 nodes and straight to the user.
As internet communication transitions, the owners state that the network becomes the Interstate Highway of the Future. The towns that have the Interstate system nearby thrive and the ones that don't seem to get left behind. There is still plenty of capacity available with the current cabling, but Madison Communications made a decision to invest in the community to provide the customer base with an infrastructure that will allow Staunton to thrive and grow economically.
The orange conduit you see around Staunton is the conduit or pipe for protecting the fiber optics. The conduit has a honeycomb divider inside it that is called a micro duct and provides for spare or replacement fiber to be added. In Staunton, only a few drops remain to be completed. Once the conduit is installed and connected, the fiber optics are blown through the conduit to the node or an aggregation point. Currently, there are fiber optics installed north of Main Street. Anchor institutions like the hospital, school, library and some businesses already have had fiber facilities installed for a number of years. Once the electronic equipment is turned on and tested, they plan to start switching customers over from their existing internet service platform to fiber optics at the end of the year. In the future, upgrades can be made by upgrading the electronic systems used to drive the fiber system network.
For the past twelve years, Madison Communication employees have routinely won the National Cable Contest, a national competition sponsored by the Society of Cable Television Engineers. This competition, uniquely called Cable Games is an individual and team competition which tests a technician's technical and fiber deployment knowledge. One of their popular charitable events is their Teacher of the Year contest that they have proudly contributed over $30,000 to the local school districts in their service areas. This year marked the 19th year that Madison has sponsored this contest that is solely focused on showing their true appreciation for the teachers and education system as a whole.
They are proud to be a 100 percent USA-based company, which means when you support them, you support your neighbors. They are a First class business helping Staunton to become a First class town in Illinois.
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