Silver Valley Communities Linked By High-Speed Line Phone Company Uses Fiber-Optic Cable To Improve N. Idaho Telecommunications

GTE is linking Idaho’s Silver Valley communities of Kellogg and Wallace with fiber-optic cable that can transmit 8,000 simultaneous conversations.

The half-inch thick cable leaves the old copper wiring in the dust, said GTE spokesman Bob Wayt.

To achieve the same capacity, GTE would have had to lay a 30-inch thick copper line between the two communities.

As GTE boosts telecommunications capacity in North Idaho, it’s increasingly installing fiber optic cable.

The cable encloses hair-thin fibers made of ultra-pure glass. Voices, data and video images are converted into pulses of light that are transmitted through the fibers at the speed of light.

The advantages to GTE’s customers: faster transmission of data and clearer telephone conversations.

“On calls between Kellogg and Wallace, they’ll hear a difference in the quality of the transmission,” Wayt said.

The project is part of a $1.3 million upgrade that will add 40 more miles to GTE’s fiber-optic network in North Idaho this year.

The company’s 340-mile “fiber backbone” already runs from Moscow to Bonners Ferry, with numerous offshoots, Wayt said.

In addition to the 11-mile Kellogg to Wallace link, GTE will run fiber-optic lines between Newport, Wash., and Spirit Lake, Idaho, and between the Idaho towns of Harrison and Worley.

The Harrison to Worley route will include three miles of line at the bottom of Lake Coeur d’Alene. It will also bring a fiber-optic line to Camp Roger C. Larson’s doorstep.

The link will be a tremendous asset for the camp, said Geoff Wood, director of the 40-acre camp near Worley, Idaho, which is run by Washington State University.

About three years ago, the camp added technology as a focus to its programs on outdoor education, leadership retreats and services for the disabled.

The fiber-optic cable will link to the camp’s amphitheater, nature study and team rope areas.

It will allow the camp to video conference leadership retreats from the amphitheater. Students studying caterpillars in the nature area could also use the link to connect with students in distant areas.

The uses are “limited only by our imagination,” Wood said.