OTISFIELD – Tom Nurmi is tired of dial-up Internet access, but the Otisfield selectman may have a while to wait before a high-speed connection is available in his part of town.

Ask Verizon when Otisfield will get high-speed service and the phone company, which provides digital subscriber line connections elsewhere in Oxford County, can’t say.

“Basically we’re trying to get that technology pushed further and further out into the neighborhoods,” spokesman Peter Riley said recently.

Nurmi isn’t upset with Verizon, but he has asked Otisfield selectmen to start courting other companies. He thinks the town should call Adelphia next, now that the communications giant is recovering from legal troubles.

Efforts last year to court Time Warner never came to fruition, Nurmi said Thursday.

“When you think about it, everything we do these days is by computer,” he said. This includes Nurmi’s efforts to run an estimating business from his home. Having to send files containing cost estimates and development plans over a dial-up connection is a real problem, he said.

DSL is a high-speed Internet connection made through ordinary copper telephone lines, according to a Federal Communications Commission definition.

According to Riley, limited technology is part of the problem with DSL services. Telephone services in the area are routed through switching stations, or hubs, that relay calls to their destinations. Verizon now offers DSL connections through 90 percent of its switching stations across Maine, Riley said. However, the DSL services can travel only three miles from each station. And that’s not as the crow flies.

While Verizon has stations that route numbers through Rumford, Dixfield, Oxford, Norway, Harrison and Bridgton, not every nearby town will be able to pick up the DSL services, Riley said.

He acknowledged that the size of a potential customer base is a factor in where the phone company will expand services. In the Oxford County region, Riley added, there are eight phone companies competing for customers.

In fact, because there are other companies in the area, a portion of Otisfield does have high speed Internet access.

The southern part of town, said Otisfield administrative assistant Marianne Izzo-Morin, has DSL through Fair Point Communications.

It may be the size of Otisfield that explains the split in telephone services and DSL provisions, she said. “We’re 47 square miles. The town of Otisfield is spread out.”

Representatives from Fair Point Communications could not be reached for comment.