Cable To Help Rural Areas Go High-Tech Fiber-Optic Line Will Run Over Bottom Of Lake Coeur D’Alene

Workers are installing a fiber-optic cable that will stretch from Worley to Harrison. That will guarantee plenty of high-speed phone access to people on the east side of Lake Coeur d’Alene, GTE officials say.

For two-and-a-half miles of the 10-mile stretch, the cable will be laid on the lake bottom. That work is expected to begin around Nov. 1 after the company has received a permit for the work from the Coeur d’Alene Indian Tribe.

“This particular project is a really good example of what we’ve been doing in North Idaho for years - addressing more of the telecommunications needs of rural America,” GTE spokesman Bob Wayt said. “We have established a fiber-optic backbone going all the way from Moscow to Bonners Ferry.”

The company is spending $1.3 million on this and two other projects that connect to that backbone. Cable also is being laid from Wallace to Kellogg and from Newport, Wash., to Spirit Lake. In all, 40 miles of cable are being added to the 340-mile fiber-optic network in North Idaho.

Fiber-optic cable uses hair-thin strands of glass to transmit voice, data and video signals.

The Harrison area now is served by a digital radio connection via St. Maries, but that is starting to reach capacity, said Mike Bevis, GTE network design manager.

Fiber-optic signal quality and speed are better than what’s provided by traditional copper cable.

“Fiber-optic cable is also expandable, where copper isn’t,” Wayt said. “With fiber, we can add (updated) equipment on each end of the cable and significantly increase capacity.”

Increased demand for Internet access is one reason growth has been so rapid.

The cable, with its glass threads encased in plastic, is so lightweight that it floats. A method of keeping it underwater was pioneered by GTE during installations elsewhere on Lake Coeur d’Alene.

“Originally, we explored using a submarine-type plastic designed for an ocean environment,” Bevis said. But that proved too costly. Instead, a fine steel wire is laced to the cable to provide weight and protection.

The new cable should be in operation by the end of the year, said Don Judd, GTE’s section manager for access design in Coeur d’Alene. The land work will be done by the end of October.

Although three or four weeks of preparation will be done on the east and west ends of the underwater cable, the lake crossing will only take a day or so, he said.

“We enter the lake from Harrison, very near the marina,” Judd said. “We cross the lake and come out at Cottonwood Bay, very near Camp Larson.”

Camp Roger Larson, operated by Washington State University, will end up with an Internet portal next to its computer lab. That boosts WSU’s efforts to turn the wooded camp into an educational, as well as a recreational, retreat.

Map of Lake Coeur d’Alene