Gte Shows Off Order Center

A training room at GTE’s new, order processing center should gets lots of use this year.

Twenty-five employees staff the center, which opened July 5. But the number of workers will triple by the end of the year, officials predicted.

“I can only tell you this will grow, and grow and grow,” said GTE specialist Gary Isaacson, showing off the 13-desk training room Thursday during an open house.

The center processes orders for digital subscriber lines. DSL use existing copper telephone wire to provide high-bandwidth services.

The service is popular because consumers don’t have to install a second phone line for their computers. Files, photos and graphics transmit and download much faster over DSL than analog lines.

“I think it will be like the microwave and VCR. Every household will have one within the next five years,” said Perry Estes, GTE’s senior administrator.

DSL service is one of the fastest growing segments of GTE’s business. The company wholesales DSL service to Internet service providers, who resell it to customers. GTE also operates a similar center in San Angelo, Texas. The Hayden center will process orders from the Western states.

DSL service can co-exist with voice messages on a standard phone line because it taps into unused high frequencies. Since voice messages use lower frequencies, there is no interference. However, a customer must be within three miles of a GTE switching office to receive the service.

Orders come into the center over the Internet. Workers who process them earn between $9.14 and $14.30 per hour. GTE is working with Job Service in Coeur d’Alene to hire employees with keyboard experience.

Jessica Beyer and John Rugg were among the first group of employees hired. Beyer, who recently graduated from Washington State University with a business degree, said the job was a good, first career step for her.

“I’m really into computers and new technology,” she said.

Rugg worked for Getronics in the Spokane Valley before it closed. He was offered a job in Portland, but didn’t want to move.

GTE is leasing about 12,600-square feet in the Prairie Commerce Park from Parkwood Business Properties. The company will expand into 6,000 additional feet as staff expands.

GTE opened its first order center in Coeur d’Alene in 1998. That center, which employs about 260 people, fills orders from competing telephone providers that want to access GTE’s infrastructure.

The success of that center in recruiting qualified employees prompted the company to locate another center in Coeur d’Alene, said Sean Fleming, manager of GTE’s DSL order operation.