Gte Nears Completion Of Upgrade After Five Years, $150 Million, Work Should Be Done This Year

GTE Northwest has nearly finished paving the roadway to the information superhighway here in North Idaho.

After five years and $150 million, the company will complete its upgrade of switching systems and transmission lines throughout the region before the year ends.

When the whole project’s done, that means businesses and individuals can use the state-of-the-art phone lines in ways once thought not possible, said Bob Wayt, GTE spokesman.

For example, businesses will be able to transmit information to other offices across the country at high speeds using something called Frame Relay technology, Wayt said.

Frame Relay packages information into electronic packets and rushes it through the system in “frames.”

Phone lines also will be able to carry video, voice and data signals at the same time using an Integrated Services Digital Network.

Being able to get all three types of communication on one line at the same time puts North Idaho at the cutting edge of modern telecommunications, said Mike Bevis, customer operations manager for GTE.

That edge helps businesses here compete, and may even help lure businesses here if they know they’ll have state-of-the-art phone services, said Bob Potter of Jobs Plus Inc. Potter recruits businesses to North Idaho.

The switches and equipment GTE has upgraded need fewer maintenance people to keep them running, Bevis said. By shrinking GTE’s North Idaho work force to about 100 people, the company has held its operating costs down. That means customers don’t have to pay for the improvements, he said.

“The new switching stations are so advanced that we can actually do maintenance on them by phone,” Bevis said. “It really is a big leap in technology.”

The new switches and lines don’t have anything to do with the 900 number call fraud case of last month, Bevis said. The technical situation that allowed a young boy to charge 900 calls to numbers in certain prefixes can’t happen again, he said.

For regular phone users, the fancy system upgrade means they can buy new phone services for security and convenience. Those include caller identification, call blocking - which lets you block future calls from a harassing phone caller - and messaging services.