Bresnan to begin offering telephone service in Montana

Bresnan Communications, a provider of cable television and high-speed Internet service, will soon offer local and long-distance telephone service in Billings and other communities.

By TOM HOWARD – The Billings Gazette Staff

http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2004/10/15/build/local/35-bresnan-phone-service.inc

Bresnan officials announced their plans to introduce the company’s newest telecommunications services Thursday in Billings, where the company is building a new $4.4 million operations center at 19th Street West and Monad Road.

William Bresnan, president and chief executive officer of Bresnan Communications, said the new 44,000-square-foot operations center should be completed in December. He said the company plans to introduce its telephone service during the first quarter of 2005, using a technology known as voice over Internet protocol, or Voice over IP. The system transports voice data over Bresnan’s cable network and eventually connects up with the public telecommunications network.

Without getting too technical, Bresnan described the new service this way: "It uses Internet protocol, but the signal doesn’t go over the Internet itself. It goes over our system."

Customers won’t notice any difference in their telephone phone service. They’ll be able to use their regular telephones and they’ll be able to transfer their existing telephone numbers to the new system, Bresnan said during a meeting with The Gazette’s editorial board.

Steve Brookstein, Bresnan’s executive vice president of operations, said Bresnan will offer customers the option of bundling telecommunications services. That means they can buy cable television, high-speed Internet service and telephone service from the same company.

"It’s important to offer new technology to our customers," Bresnan said. "That’s how you stay competitive."

Bresnan said the new Billings operations center will initially employ about 200 people. But over the next few years employment numbers would likely increase to 300.

Outsourcing jobs overseas has been a hot topic in this presidential election year. Brookstein said the new Billings operations center allows the company to bring about 50 technical support jobs in house. Previously those jobs had been contracted to a company in Canada.

"We’re bringing 50 jobs into the state from Canada," Brookstein said.

Bresnan Communications received more than 850 resumes after the company began advertising for job openings in Billings, Brookstein said. The high level of education within the local work force was one of the biggest reasons that Bresnan decided to build the regional operations center in Billings, he said.

Bresnan’s new operations center is one of the bigger job-expansion stories to unfold in Yellowstone County in recent years. The Big Sky Economic Development Authority, Yellowstone County’s economic development agency, helped land the deal by putting together a $1.6 million incentive package that included public and private funding.

The company, based in Purchase, N.Y., has more than 300,000 subscribers in Colorado, Montana, Wyoming and Utah and employs about 800 people in four states.