Southern Illinois Southern Illinois Southern Illinois (also known as "Little Egypt") is the southern third of the state of Illinois. The southern part of Illinois has a unique cultural and regional history. Part of downstate Illinois, the Southern Illinois region is bordered by the two most voluminous rivers in the United States: the Mississippi River and its connecting Missouri River to the west, and the Ohio River to the east and south with the Wabash as tributary. Southern Illinois' most populated city is Belleville at 44,478. Other principal cities include Alton, Centralia, Collinsville, Edwardsville, Effingham, O'Fallon, Harrisburg, Herrin, Mt. Vernon, Marion, and
Big River Telephone add full-featured residential and business telephony services to their existing customer base quickly and efficiently. Big River Telephone provides back-office platform support, network connectivity for voice traffic, support for operations and marketing and technical support. Currently Big River Telephone is providing back-office support and service to cable operations in Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Minnesota, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Texas, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Colorado, Nebraska, Indiana, and Georgia. Big River Telephone Company operates a network of class 4 and class 5 switches. To ensure reliability and security, Big River has implemented Class 5 VoIP switching technologies by MetaSwitch.