Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 12, 1993 TAG: 9302120244
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
DIAL 711 FOR NEWS, IF APPROVED
Landmark Communications Inc. has asked the State Corporation Commission to allow it to use a new three-digit phone number, 711, to sell information to customers throughout Virginia.If the SCC approves the request, it would be the first three-digit telephone service other than 411 or 911 in the state.
Landmark - the Norfolk-based parent of Times-World Corp., publisher of the Roanoke Times & World-News - asked the SCC to hold hearings on its request, said Gordon Borrell, general manager of the company's information services unit. He said Landmark would like to have the three-digit toll line operating by September and anticipates a per-call charge of 25 to 35 cents.
Revenue from the tolls would be shared by Landmark and local phone companies.
Borrell said Landmark also would program its service so that callers could use their phones to have information, such as winning lottery numbers for the past six months, faxed to their homes or offices.
Landmark executives had been trying since last April to convince C&P Telephone Co. of Virginia to allow it to use the 711 line on an experimental basis, Borrell said.
C&P declined, saying it wants to wait for a Federal Communications Commission ruling on how to allocate three-digit numbers, known as "N11" codes.
Steven C. Bradley, C&P's manager of regulatory relations, said in a Dec. 29 letter to Borrell that the phone company had more requests for the available three-digit numbers - 211, 311, 511, 611, 711 and 811 - than it has codes.
"We're just in a stalemate," Borrell said of Landmark's talks with C&P. "So at this point, we're throwing it in the laps of the State Corporation Commission."
Eventually, Borrell said, Landmark would like to sell information through three-digit numbers in other parts of the country.