Birch began converting customers served by the Northpoint service to its own DSL service earlier this year when it looked as if Northpoint was in trouble. Birch officials said they decided to provide their own DSL service rather than continue reselling a third party's service because they wanted to control customer service and quality. Birch officials believe they will succeed with DSL, even though early providers failed. For one thing, Scott said, the price of DSL equipment has dropped substantially since early competitors entered the market. Currently, he added, DSL is the smallest of those revenue streams.
Local service provides the most revenue, followed by long-distance service and equipment sales.