NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The collapse of Enron was terrible to behold. But at least it was quick.

The ongoing disintegration of the telecom sector, by contrast, is as slow and painful and confusing as a bad Swedish art film.

Many of the industry's former stars now seem to have been held aloft by little more than elaborate accounting games, in which companies with no real customers conjured up impressive-sounding revenues by swapping assets and selling things to one another.

To sum up: Telecom...scary!

End of story? Not quite. Because not every telecom company is a Global Crossing. In fact, there are some decent, often overlooked telecom that actually can boast of things like customers, revenues, and great gooey gobs of cash flow. And because they have been overlooked, some are trading at decent valuations as well.

Exhibit A: Alltel (AT: up $0.38 to $55.59, Research, Estimates), a wireless and local phone company headquartered in the cosmopolitan metropolis of Little Rock, Arkansas. Exciting it may not be, but it's soundly profitable -- and even growing a bit -- in a poky sort of way.

Analyst Michael Rollins of Salomon Smith Barney, recently started coverage of the company with a "Buy," citing a "strong and stable base of free cash flow."

Strong? Stable? Vive la difference!

Alltel popped into the news last week when it backed away from its hostile bid to take over the similarly unglamorous rural telecom carrier Centurytel (CTL: up $0.68 to $34.09, Research, Estimates), deciding instead just to buy its wireless assets.

The deal seems to be a good one for both sides. Analysts expect Alltel, which offers nationwide cellular service, to make better use of Centurytel's wireless business than Centurytel could. And Centurytel will use the money -- $1.6 billion -- to help pay for telephone access lines it's buying from Verizon (VZ: up $0.53 to $46.08, Research, Estimates).

While providing wireless service accounts for the biggest chunk of Alltel's revenues, the company's local phone business, which boasts hefty profit margins, provides roughly a quarter of total revenues. The company also dabbles in Internet access and IT services.

No, Alltel can't promise you skyrocketing growth rates; analysts expect it to deliver perhaps 11 percent annual growth over the next few years. But a steady real growth beats outsized imaginary growth any day.

And the price isn't bed either: With the company expected to earn roughly $3.20 a share this year, it sports a modest P/E of 17. (Alltel, though, says it expects the Centurytel deal to dilute earnings somewhat this year, which would push the P/E up a tad.)

If Alltel sounds like your kind of company, you might also want to look a bit further into Centurytel as well. Providing local telephone service to small towns and rural areas in an assortment of states including Wisconsin, Arkansas, and Washington, the company is expected to earn a little over $2 a share this year, giving it a forward P/E of only 16.

Analysts expect the company to grow at perhaps 10 percent a year over the next five years. You might also think about giving Commonwealth Telephone (CTMO: Research, Estimates) the once-over twice; it's a rural Pennsylvania carrier that also dabbles in data.

A little dull? Maybe. But haven't telecom investors had enough excitement already?

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