Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, August 29, 1995                   TAG: 9508290032
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RAY REED
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

AREA WON'T BE 1ST TO GET PHONE CABLE

P.S., Pearisburg

A: Bell Atlantic isn't making any commitments on when, or if, it will offer cable TV in rural areas.

A Bell Atlantic spokesman said Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads will be first to receive cable TV from the phone company.

Richmond and Roanoke are in the second tier of locations to begin receiving the service, said Bell Atlantic spokesman Paul Miller.

The telecommunications bill has passed both the House and Senate, but the president has threatened to veto it.

Cable TV by phone is going ahead in Virginia, though, because federal courts OK'd it in January 1994.

Bell's initial markets are large metropolitan areas, because that's where it can sign up enough customers to justify installing fiber-optic cable in neighborhoods.

Rural areas are less likely to see cable TV by phone any time soon, particularly with the competition that's developing.

Direct-broadcast satellite systems and wireless cable are here and growing.

Those 18-inch dish antennas have been sprouting on rooftops for a couple of years and bring in more TV channels than most cable systems offer.

Starting in mid-October, Roanoke-Botetourt Communications plans to provide wireless cable TV to anyone who can receive its microwave signal from the top of Tinker Mountain. The company has a waiting list of potential customers.|

540 work for you?

Q: People outside Virginia (Connecticut, specifically) have had trouble using the new 540 area code to call into Virginia. What's up?

R.L., Radford

A: Problems using the 540 area code mostly seem to start with the phone system where the call is placed.

The difficulty wasn't restricted to Connecticut; people in Michigan and California, among other places, found they could not return business calls to the 540 area code.

These problems should clear up gradually, as thousands of businesses around the country reprogram their switching equipment.

Local phone companies also have to update their systems. In Virginia, for example, the bigger local phone companies such as Bell Atlantic, Centel and GTE reprogrammed to accept the 540 area code immediately.

But people who tried to call from their uncle's farm in a remote part of Pennsylvania, for example, couldn't reach 540 in the first weeks it was in effect.

That's because the local company in Pennsylvania hadn't made the changes necessary to deal with that strange middle digit in the 540 area. Only five areas in the nation have a middle digit that isn't 0 or 1.

These problems should trickle away before Jan. 27, when the 703 area code ceases to function in Western Virginia.

Lots of phone devices need to be reprogrammed: pay-phone systems, cellular phones, computer modems, fax machines, pagers, burglar alarms, automatic dialers and voice-mail services.

Got a question about something that might affect other people, too? Something you've come across and wondered about? Give us a call at 981-3118. Maybe we can find the answer.|