Wiring the outback.

• Author: Mullen, Theo
• Position: Tri-Corners Telecommunications Inc. to provide services to Colorado's remote Four Corners region - Company Profile

A southwest Colorado company picks up the telecom slack left by US West's access line sales.

In early January, US West announced plans to sell about 500,000 access lines about three percent of its 16.5 million lines - in 10 of its 14 states, including Colorado. Most of the 500,000 access lines are in thinly populated areas. The move leaves the telecom field wide open for smaller companies that can connect countrified urbanites and their high-tech dependent companies.

US West has a pretty convincing sales pitch at the ready. The access lines' future buyers "will be able to offer a full range of services, including long-distance, to meet customers' desire for one-stop shopping," said Betsy Bernard, US West executive vice president of retail markets.

Meantime, US West will take the money from the sale and pour it into urban areas, company officials said.

All of this is just fine with Durango-based Tri-Corners Telecommunications Inc. (TCT), a for-profit joint venture of two nonprofit electric companies, Empire Electric Association Inc. of Cortez and La Plata Electric Association Inc. of Durango.

Newly formed TCT seems intent on taking advantage of the situation and is racing to wire Colorado's remote Four Corners region with modern fiber optics and wireless communications equipment.

Fast-growing Durango has only limited telecommunications capacity, that is, a microwave band link to the outside world, and no fiber optic link. Long-distance calls from Durango are sent by microwave band, which has limited telecommunications capability, to Grand Junction, which has a fiber optic connection to a nationwide grid of fiber optic cable.

That has hurt economic development in the Durango area, claim officials at the Economic Development District of southwest Colorado. New companies want to move into the area, but can't if they are telecommunications-dependent, which most are.

Officials from the state's better-known phone company agree.

"Rural customers want all the services they see advertised on television. People want to be able to communicate at high speed with urban areas as if they were there," said Abel Chavez, the Pueblo-based local markets area manager for US West.

Most of the demand is being driven by data requirements, said Chavez. "The Internet has changed how people view their business, and they see...