Introduction of phone service by the cable company will result in the hires.

By Tim Knauss

Time Warner Cable’s plan to provide phone service over its cables will bring more than 40 jobs to Central New York.

The company will begin hiring technicians, sales agents and customer service representatives early in 2004 and plans to begin offering phone service by the end of the second quarter, said Jeff Unaitis, speaking for Time Warner Cable.

The company has advertised for a general manager to run the local telephone business, Unaitis said.

Time Warner Cable introduced what it calls «Digital Phone» in May in Portland, Maine, and plans to roll out the service in many of its markets during the coming year. Recently, the service was introduced in a second market, Raleigh, N.C.

Instead of sending calls over telephone wires, Time Warner Cable sends calls over the same lines that carry its TV and Internet signals.

Customers make calls as they normally would. A cable modem attached to the telephone converts each call into a digital signal and transmits it over cable lines to a data center. Before being handed off to the traditional phone network, calls are converted back into analog signals.

Each call from Portland is processed by equipment at Time Warner Cable’s office in DeWitt, which serves as the company’s Internet hub for the Northeast. A so-called «soft switch» provides dial tone and routes the calls.

Time Warner Cable’s plans to extend the service to new areas got a boost Monday, when the company announced agreements with Sprint and MCI that will help speed up the nationwide rollout. Time Warner plans to introduce phone service in most of its markets by the end of 2004, said Keith Cocozza, speaking for the company.

Sprint and MCI will help Time Warner provide long-distance service, interconnect with traditional phone networks and offer services such as caller ID and E-911.

The price in Portland for unlimited local and long-distance calls is $39.95 for digital cable or Internet subscribers, and $49.95 for nonsubscribers. More than 8,000 customers in Maine have signed up since May, Cocozza said.

To make room at the DeWitt office for new employees who will focus on phone service, Time Warner Cable plans to move its advertising sales group from DeWitt to the third floor of its downtown News 10 Now building, Unaitis said. The space, which is unoccupied, will be renovated soon to accommodate the move, he said.

Time Warner Cable has about 1,000 employees in the region, 750 of whom work in the greater Syracuse area.