THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, October 1, 1994 TAG: 9410010267
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D01 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
Here's a message for hundreds of thousands of Hampton Roads phone callers for whom the Bell charges tolls: starting today, you're getting a price break.
Just after midnight Friday, Bell Atlantic Corp. took the long-distance ``1'' out of most calls between its customers in South Hampton Roads and the Peninsula.
The move by the region's largest local phone company creates a no-toll calling area covering Hampton Roads' seven largest cities and more than 450,000 customers.
Bell Atlantic said the expanded local calling zone will save residents and businesses millions of dollars in annual phone charges.
Local business and civic leaders say the tolls' elimination is more important than that, however - it's another step in breaking down social and economic barriers between the two sides of Hampton Roads.
``Everyone in Hampton Roads is now closer,'' said S. Michael Evans, chairman of the Virginia Peninsula Chamber of Commerce. His group held a joint press conference Friday with the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce to herald today's event.
Actually, almost everybody in Hampton Roads is now closer.
GTE Corp., the region's other local phone company, has yet to extend the local calling area of any of its 50,000 customers in Chesapeake, Suffolk, Virginia Beach and Isle of Wight County to the Peninsula. GTE customers will have to wait for state regulators to ponder that company's plan, probably sometime next year.
Bell Atlantic announced its intention to expand no-toll calling early last year. Community leaders on both sides of the water have almost universally hailed the move, which removes the tolls from an estimated 2.5 million calls a month within the region.
Some said that the phone tolls, because they affected everyone, did more to discourage regional interaction than any other factor.
``Every time you punched that ``1'' to call across the water you were reminded that it wasn't part of your immediate community,'' said Ann Baldwin, research director of Forward Hampton Roads, an economic development group for the five South Hampton Roads cities.
Baldwin said many businesses learned to disregard the toll charges and build up customers on both sides of the region. But they did so at a cost.
John R. Lawson, president of Newport News-based W.M. Jordan & Co., estimated his construction company will save between $10,000 and $12,000 a year as a result of the larger free-calling range.
That's even after paying a slightly higher basic monthly rate for the company's Newport News lines. As part of Bell Atlantic's changeover, the monthly flat rate for business phone lines on the Peninsula will increase by between $3.83 and $7.68 per line; Peninsula residential basic rates will rise by between 74 cents and $1.69 per line monthly.
For Suffolk customers, monthly bills will go up 74 cents per residential line and $3.85 cents per business line. Monthly rates for Bell Atlantic customers in the other cities of South Hampton Roads will stay the same.
The sudden freedom to call most anywhere in Hampton Roads without the clock ticking may even boost the arts, some residents said.
``It's one of the best things that could happen,'' said Michael Curry, executive director of the Hampton Arts Commission, whose group sponsors concerts and dances by internationally known performers.
The commission would like to expand its appeal among South Hampton Roads patrons. With the lifting of phone tolls, Curry said, ``I would think it would make people more willing to call us about events.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color staff map
Before Dialing ``1''
For copy of map, see microfilm
KEYWORDS: BELL ATLANTIC CORP.
by CNB