Palmerton Telephone Company announced that an upgrade in its central office switching equipment will take place overnight Tuesday.

The process is scheduled to begin at 10 p.m. on that date and should be completed before 6 a.m. the following morning. If all goes as planned, customers in the Bowmanstown, Kresgeville, Kunkletown and Palmerton exchanges will wake up Wednesday with service provided by a new state-of-the-art telephone switching exchange capable of new advanced services.Although the actual cutover to the new system will take place over just a few hours, it has been over 10 months in planning, installation and testing.The new equipment is manufactured by General Bandwidth Corporation, the successor to Northern Telecom. Genband has manufacturing facilities in Raleigh, N.C., and Richardson, Texas.The new system is essentially a large computer operating on the same principles, although many times larger and faster than the one on your desk.While every precaution is being taken to prevent or minimize inconvenience to the customer, some will experience up to 45 minutes without dial tone. This will be necessary as the computer reboots and loads the software necessary to provide service.Customers experiencing problems with telephone service after 6 a.m. Wednesday should report the problem to the company's repair service, as this may be due to other reasons than the planned outage.