US West Adds Four More Sites to Video Plans : Telecommunications: The regional phone company, seeking FCC approval, plans another 15 locales by end of ’94.

US West identified four more sites Monday for its proposed multimedia network that would bring movies, home shopping, games and pay-per-view video into phone customers’ homes.

The regional phone company said it will add Denver; Minneapolis-St. Paul; Boise, Idaho, and Portland, Ore., to the information superhighway already under construction in Omaha.

US West said it plans to ask the Federal Communications Commission to approve its expanded plans and said about 15 more cities will be added to the construction list by year’s end.

The company is committed to spend at least $750 million over the next two years toward construction of the system.

By the end of next week, US West will file applications with the FCC covering 292,000 homes and businesses in Minneapolis-St. Paul and 132,000 homes and businesses in Portland, said Gary Ames, president and chief executive of US West Communications.

Depending on how quickly the FCC acts on its applications, the company hopes to begin construction in Denver, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Portland this year and complete construction in the neighborhoods included in the upcoming filings by the end of next year, Ames said. The company is still reviewing the timetable for construction in Boise, he said.

Customers eventually will be able to link their phones and televisions to participate in meetings, shop at their favorite stores and choose from hundreds of movies and TV programs whenever they want.

Video classrooms and phone calls also will be possible.

Work already is under way on the company’s multimedia network in Omaha, where US West launched the project. In late December, the FCC approved US West’s application to try out video dial-tone service there.

The first multimedia services, including home shopping, movies on demand, interactive games and enhanced pay-per-view video programs, will be available to as many as 2,500 Omaha homes and businesses in a technical trial beginning during the second quarter of this year.

The trial will be expanded to a market trial involving 60,000 homes and businesses by late summer or early fall.

“It took six months to obtain the FCC’s approval for Omaha,” Ames said. “We can’t afford to wait for completion of the Omaha trials to submit the next set of applications.