what are the choices for local phone service?

Are there any other local phone services to the area besides Sprint Embarq?

Thanks for any help!

Not that I know of, believe they have the entire market.

For local companies, Embarq is your only choice, unless you go with a VOIP phone service like Vonage, but you will probably use Embarq to provide you with the high speed cable. I believe they call this a monopoly. ;-)