Internet Partners of America

IPA Helps Rural Arkansas Get Online

Wayne King, chief executive officer of Internet Partners of America, readily admits he wasn’t sure about the possibilities of the Internet when his son first urged him to look into it in 1995.

A former realtor, King was then running a long-distance telephone company. “I didn’t really know what the Internet was,” he says.

That soon changed, when King saw the dearth of access opportunities to the information superhighway in rural Arkansas. In mid-1995, Fort Smith-based IPA started offering dial-up access to customers in Fort Smith, Rogers, Fayetteville and Joplin, Mo.

Initially, the company handled its service through 20 analog external modems mounted on a rack. Soon, King says, the upgrade was made to digital modems, part of the company’s commitment to keeping up with ever-changing technology.

Through customer growth and acquisition of smaller Internet service providers in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Missouri, IPA has grown to almost 40,000 customers in 80 locations. It has also kept up with technology, offering high speed service and dedicated-line access along with upgrading its own infrastructure to handle the demand. The company has about 85 employees.

King says a key to the company’s success was concentrating on the rural areas, which the larger ISPs were avoiding. Another key was to let the customers drive the service offerings and “keeping it simple” so that even computer novices could enjoy the opportunities for information, communication and commerce on the Internet.

“Even the person who doesn’t know a mouse from a modem, we can help get them online,” King says.

In 1999, IPA merged with regional ISP OneMain.com and later this year will take on its name.

King says the company plans to create “geographic communities” online, which would provide local portals to the Internet packed with local information.