Mid-Rivers Communications

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has rules requiring telecommunications service providers like Mid-Rivers to make its services and products accessible to people with disabilities, if such access is readily achievable. These rules implement Section 255 of the Federal Communications Act.  Section 255 requires telecommunications service providers to make their services and devices compatible with peripheral devices and specialized customer premises equipment that are commonly used by people with disabilities, if such compatibility is readily achievable. Please contact us at 1-800-452-2288 for further information or to discuss your accessibility needs and the options we may have to assist you in using our services.

For many years, your home phone would allow you to stay connected to emergency voice services during a commercial power failure. However, many of today’s home phone services require backup battery power to continue functioning during a power outage.

Your Mid-Rivers provided equipment is powered by plugging it into an electrical wall outlet. In the event of a power outage, your equipment will not receive power, just like any other electrical device in your home. To avoid disruption of home voice service during an outage – and to maintain the ability to connect to 911 emergency services – Mid-Rivers has installed and will maintain a backup battery for your home phone at no additional charge. The purpose of this notice is to share information with you about those batteries; you do not need to take any action unless you are interested in purchasing a solar extender option as detailed below.

Backup batteries installed by Mid-Rivers as part of our standard voice service installation are intended for BACKUP ONLY. The battery must be plugged into a consistent AC power source to remain properly charged. It is your responsibility to provide and maintain a consistent primary power source for your equipment and backup battery (such as a wall outlet with commercial power). Additional charges for time and materials may apply if your battery needs to be replaced more often than every five years. Customers may decline to have our backup battery installed if the necessary primary power source cannot be provided or for any other reason.

What Your Battery Can – and Can’t – Do for You

Mid-Rivers’ backup batteries allow you to continue to use your home voice services on a corded landline phone during a power outage.

Our backup battery does NOT provide power to any services other than voice. The backup battery powers the wall jacks that provide voice service. The backup battery does NOT power any other devices that may be connected to those jacks such as cordless phones, home security systems, medical monitoring devices or other equipment.

Expected Backup Power Duration

The standard backup battery should give you about eight (8) hours of emergency standby voice service. If you use your voice service sparingly during a power outage, the battery should last on standby power for longer than eight hours. Please avoid plugging other devices into the battery unit to maximize the battery life available for your phone service.

Solar charging units or larger capacity batteries capable of increasing battery run time up to 24 hours can be purchased through Mid-Rivers upon request, for a one-time charge of up to $700 (depending on the type of equipment at your location). Please contact us if you are interested in that option. You can also extend your backup timeframe by purchasing and installing your own commercially available uninterrupted power supply (UPS) backup power source, or a whole-home standby power solution like a gas or propane generator.

The flexibility and features of your Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) Hosted PBX telephone system can cause emergency 911 calling to work differently than with traditional phones. Please review this important information about Emergency 911 calls and your Unified Communications Hosted PBX telephone system.

To help emergency services respond as quickly as possible, you need to provide to Mid-Rivers, and keep current, the following information for every phone on your system:

A valid street address (911 physical address)
The floor (first floor, second level, etc.), if applicable
The room number, if applicable
Other identifying information a dispatcher may need to know to send emergency responders to the correct location, such as “Basement, “Shop in Back,” or similar reference points

Please let Mid-Rivers know immediately if you move phones around, change offices, take a phone home, etc. We need the current street address and physical location (with floor, room number, etc. if applicable) of each line in our systems to be able to send the right details to emergency services. We also need to know if the phone number or email for your Central Notification contact changes (the person in your organization who is notified when someone dials 911 from your system).

If you use a virtual extension, the MaxUC or other Mobile apps with your Unified Communications voice number(s), or otherwise use the service from a different address than initially provided, you must register your current location each time it changes by contacting Mid-Rivers. If you use Call Forwarding / Find Me-Follow Me or Device Twinning to support multiple phones in different locations, you must decide which of these locations is the “primary” location for the directory number, and use this as the 911 location. Phones in other locations sharing this directory number should not make 911 calls.

For more information about Federal 911 laws for multi-line telephone systems, please visit www.fcc.gov/mlts-911-requirements.

Mid-Rivers offers Lifeline low-income assistance to qualifying residential subscribers with discounts of $9.25 per month on qualifying Internet or bundles. Larger discounts are available to qualifying customers on Tribal Lands. Discounts on standalone voice services are also available with unlimited local calling, free toll blocking, and long distance toll rates as shown at midrivers.com/telephone/.

Customers must qualify through the National Verifier to become eligible to receive the Lifeline discounts. All Lifeline customers must re-certify every year before the anniversary date of their enrollment. The government will contact customers prior to their recertification date with a reminder.

In most communities, our Wide Open Internet plan is offered to Lifeline subscribers. Wide Open provides the fastest speed possible at the customer’s location for $19.95 per month plus $0.20/GB of monthly data usage UP TO a total of $79.95, less the $9.25 Lifeline discount. In certain areas where speeds may be limited, Lifeline subscribers are offered our highest-performing service plan of at least 4M/1M. Your location must be capable of at least 4M/1M speeds to be eligible for Lifeline. All deposits and any applicable Internet equipment fees are waived for eligible Lifeline customers. Mid-Rivers also offers our qualifying voice and Internet bundles to Lifeline customers where the customer’s facilities are capable of a qualifying Internet plan.

Asistencia para dersonas de bajos ingresos

Mid-Rivers ofrece asistencia Lifeline para personas de bajos ingresos a suscriptores residenciales calificados con descuentos de $9.25 por mes en paquetes o Internet calificados. Hay mayores descuentos disponibles para clientes que califiquen en Tribal Lands. También se encuentran disponibles descuentos en servicios de voz independientes con llamadas locales ilimitadas, bloqueo de llamadas gratuito y tarifas de larga distancia, como se muestra en midrivers.com/telephone/.

Los clientes deben calificar a través del Verificador Nacional para ser elegibles para recibir los descuentos Lifeline. Todos los clientes de Lifeline deben volver a certificarse cada año antes de la fecha de aniversario de su inscripción. El gobierno se comunicará con los clientes antes de la fecha de recertificación para enviarles un recordatorio.

En la mayoría de las comunidades, nuestro plan Wide Open Internet se ofrece a los suscriptores de Lifeline. Wide Open ofrece la velocidad más rápida posible en la ubicación del cliente por $19.95 por mes más $0.20/GB de uso de datos mensual HASTA un total de $79.95, menos el descuento Lifeline de $9.25. En ciertas áreas donde las velocidades pueden estar limitadas, a los suscriptores de Lifeline se les ofrece nuestro plan de servicio de mayor rendimiento de al menos 4M/1M. Su ubicación debe tener capacidad para velocidades de al menos 4M/1M para ser elegible para Lifeline. Todos los depósitos y cualquier tarifa aplicable por equipo de Internet no se aplican a los clientes elegibles de Lifeline. Mid-Rivers también ofrece nuestros paquetes de voz e Internet calificados a clientes de Lifeline donde las instalaciones del cliente son compatibles con un plan de Internet calificado.