Telephone Service

Because we lived in an RV park when we first moved to Golden Valley and then bought land and moved onto our property, we had to request telephone services twice.

Telephone (and internet) services are provided in Mohave County by Citizens Utility Company. They also provide electricity to Golden Valley. One might think that the rules and conditions which apply to obtaining telephone service and electric service would be the same. One would be foolish to come to that conclusion.

Obtaining telephone service at the RV park was relatively painless. We went into the Citizens Utility office, paid our deposit and waited for a week or so. The site we had in the RV Park had been pre-wired for telephone service. About the deposit....this can be waived if you have a letter from your previous telephone service provider stating that you are of good character, pay your bills, and don’t cause anyone any trouble. Of course we had no such letter, having neglected to obtain same from Southwestern Bell in Texas.

When we had bought our mobile home and it was on our property and we had water and electricity, we went into the Citizens Utility office to request telephone service be transferred from the RV park. Much to our surprise, we were informed that this might take up to 6 weeks. (The customer service representative was an optimist!) Now, being without a telephone for 6 weeks is not a major problem for us....we have no small children or teenagers in our family but to be without the Internet is to be without our chief means of communication with our families. Also, it was our hope at that time to start an Internet business and we were very anxious to get started.

From the initial request until the service was established took about 3 months. The Communications division had to get an easement from the person who owns the property across from us (but who lives in Pennsylvania) in order to extend their underground cables to our property, even though the Electric division had already extended their lines to us.

But, all’s well that end’s well and we finally got our telephone service. Lessons learned include:

• Don’t assume that one company which offers a variety of services has one
  set of rules.
• Get letters of credit prior to leaving home.
• Be patient.....but squeak once in awhile....remember the old adage about the “squeaky wheel”.
• Always double the amount of time that you think is reasonable for any project.