Here's a little info PA puts out in defense of the tax they put on phone companies to subsidize rural phone networks.
75% of PA's rural communities still have analog phone lines. These systems are integrated into the digital phone grid using digital converters housed in the old "switch houses" located in small towns and rural areas.
Our "switch house" (owned by AT&T) is a 20ft square block building located near the town of Conneaut Lake. This is also the source of power for the analog lines as there is 220 coming into the building and you can hear the step-down converter's fan running all of the time (cooling the whole system no doubt).
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