As reported in the Everett Herald on September 1, 1999

Silverton may get phone service

Bid comes from Seattle company

By LESLIE MORIARTY

SILVERTON -- Diane Boyd has reason to believe that by next summer, she'll have a telephone at her house.

"At this point, there are no guarantees," Boyd said. "But I am really hoping that this thing works out."

It isn't that she can't afford a phone. It's that there is no telephone service available to the community, 22 miles east of Granite Falls on the Mountain Loop Highway.

About 50 year-round residents of Silverton, and another 30-plus summer residents are completely without phone or Internet connections.

Boyd, a resident there for nearly a dozen years, recently learned that an international telephone company has an interest in Silverton.

Beaver Creek Telephone Co. of Seattle has applied to the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission asking that it be allowed to provide telephone service to Silverton.

The company, a part of International Telcom LTD, also is requesting to serve Hobart, a small community in northeast King County, which also is ringless.

International Telcom LTD is an international provider of discount communications including telephones, data-transmission, Internet-based faxing and personal messaging. It is a private company with 700,000 customers in 225 countries and is headquartered in Seattle, according to its Web site.

The commission is expected to act on the application at a meeting Sept. 8 or Sept. 22, and staff is recommending the application be approved, said Bob Shirley, staff regulatory consultant.

"In approving the application, the commission would be clearing the way for the company to proceed with its goal to provide telephone service to these areas that are not served by anyone," Shirley said. "If they have the commission's approval, then they can go to (Snohomish and King) counties and pursue permits and they can work on getting funding for the project."

Financing can come from private sources or through low-interest government loans, Shirley said.

Boyd said as far back as anyone can remember, Silverton has never had telephone service. A few old-timers remember when the U.S. Forest Service employed more people there, the Monte Cristo Railroad ran in the 1920s, and there were old crank phones. But those have long since gone by the wayside. And, because of the geography, cellular telephones usually can't pick up signals. The nearest telephone today is at the Verlot Ranger Station about five miles west of the community.

Shirley said although the Federal Telecommunications Act of 1996 requires universal telephone service, many telephone service providers find it too expensive to extend lines to remote areas like Silverton, which have small populations. Past estimates have been as much as $650,000.

"For the number of people being served, the costs of getting service to the area outweighs any profit the companies could make," he said. "In order to provide the service to the remote areas, costs for telephone service would likely go up for every one of their customers. And they don't want that."

Enter Beaver Creek Telephone Co.

When officials of its parent company read last March about Silverton's battle to get telephones, Lance Sentman went to work on a plan for Silverton and Hobart.

Sentman began by driving the area with Boyd and her husband and mapping every house that wanted telephone service. He estimated locations wanting service in the Silverton area to be about 40 homes.

Sentman said the company hasn't determined what the project might cost. After the application is secured, the next step will be to get approval from the U.S. Forest Service and the county to begin laying underground telephone cable, he said.

"But we're looking at this as something that can be accomplished within the year," he said.

The name, Beaver Creek Telephone Co., was chosen to represent the rustic, rural nature of the area and the fact that the service will be to several rural locations, not just Silverton.

"We were looking at a topographical map and Beaver Creek was the first geographical feature we came across, close to the area," he said.

Meanwhile, Boyd said people in the small community of Silverton are happy about the possibility that they may have telephones within a year.

"Everyone is excited," she said. "They want telephones and they want to be able to get online."

Boyd, who is employed at the Verlot Ranger Station, has the area's only two-way radio at her house. It is used to summon help in emergencies.

"We've been lucky this summer," she said. "We've not had any real urgent things come up. We've had the usual people with cars breaking down or running out of gasoline, or having flat tires. And I've just gotten on the radio and called for a tow truck."

She said many people who travel the Mountain Loop Highway don't realize that there are no services beyond Granite Falls.

"They can't believe that even in this day and age, we don't even have telephones out here," she said.

Boyd said the locals are ready to do what they have to and pay what they can to have telephone service.

"We want this to be a reality," she said. "We think this is more than just rumor because this company (Beaver Creek) has put a lot of work into the project already."