As reported in the Everett Herald on March 22, 1999

Silvertonites too quiet

Rural residents eager for a phone connection

By LESLIE MORIARTY

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SILVERTON -- Residents here just want to be connected to the world. By telephone, that is.

For the 50-plus residents of this rural community 22 miles east of Granite Falls on the Mountain Loop Highway, having telephone service would mean the difference between having to use a two-way radio when emergencies occur or having to drive about five miles to the nearest telephone at the Verlot Ranger Station.

"Most of us moved out here because we want to be away from things," Diane Boyd said. She and her family have lived in Silverton for 11 years, moving there from Everett when her neighborhood got too noisy, she said. "But being away from noise and traffic, and not being able to have the modern convenience of a telephone are two very different things," she said.

Last week, about 50 residents of Silverton, some who live there year-round and others who just spend weekends and summers there, met with representatives of the Washington State Utilities and Transportation Commission (WUTC).

Bob Shirley, regulatory consultant with the WUTC, told them he came to hear them out because he hopes to be able to convince a telephone service provider to look at linking Silverton to the world via telephones.

"I have already found representatives of two companies who are willing to come out here and take a look," he said. "We may be in for a tough go. But we won't know until we try."

Although there is a state law that requires telephone service be provided to all communities in the state, Silverton has "fallen into one of those little cracks" without service.

He told residents that companies define communities differently. Telephone companies won't go into an area unless the company can recover the start-up costs over a 10-, 20-, or 30-year time frame.

"Unless you guys plan to make a lot of calls to Australia, it's probably not going to be a big money maker for a telephone company to come out here," he said.

Although he didn't know exact figures of what extending service from Verlot to Silverton would be, residents said they've been told by a large telephone company that services most of Snohomish County that it could be as much as $640,000.

Shirley said there are other alternatives, such as a wireless loop. That is technology that uses standard telephones. Transmission signals are sent from pizza-sized satellite dishes mounted on the sides of homes and aimed at a large antenna that links service outside the local area.

"Where you live will matter with that, however, because the transmissions travel in line of sight," he said. "Trees and mountains can interrupt service."

Boyd said that's the problem with using cellular phones. A local cellular company gave her the equipment to try and she even climbed on her roof and turned the satellite dish in every possible direction. But it wouldn't pick up the signal from the nearest cell tower.

"Cells can work sometimes," she said. "But you can't rely on them unless you're on the top of the mountains."

Residents said they have to use the Snohomish County sheriff's radio band to get help when there is an emergency. The radio is kept at Boyd's house.

"That's how we got help when a young women was killed in the ice caves last summer," she said.

Others said they have to drive to the nearest pay telephone at Verlot, or at the Mountain View restaurant a mile or so west of Verlot. But even that isn't reliable.

"Sometimes it's so full of quarters, you can't get your quarter in it," said Silverton resident Don Burris. He said he worries about emergencies because he has a young child in his home.

Sue Voore, who runs the summer camps at Camp Silverton, said there are more than 1,000 children attending the camp each summer.

"If we need something, we have to rely on somebody going to a pay phone," she said. "Diane has the sheriff's radio. But she's not always home."

Shirley said there are other areas of the state besides Silverton which don't have telephone service. Some of those are the Marblemount area in Snohomish County and the Hobart area in King County.

"There's no doubt that service can get to every area," he said. "But that's different from getting somebody to actually do it."

He said once telephone service became a free enterprise, competitive business rather than a monopoly, companies have to do what makes financial sense. But, he said, companies can recover the high costs of extending service to a remote area by charging all of its customers, even those in the city, higher rates to pay it off.

And, he said, there is some federal grant money from the Rural Utilities Services that companies can apply for to lessen the costs. Some legislation being considered by the state Senate would mean some state funding to get telephone service to unserved rural areas.

If conventional telephone service is determined to be the way to go, lines could be buried to avoid the costs of placing telephone poles and maintaining them. He also said there could be some people who would fight telephone poles along a scenic byway such as the Mountain Loop Highway.

Shirley said he plans to be back in the area in April with a representative of a phone company and would report back to them.