THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, June 1, 1995 TAG: 9506010410
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
Blanche Miller and her daughter live on the same skinny strip of sand that comprises North Carolina's Outer Banks. But every time Miller wants to speak to her offspring, it costs her.
Every day, Miller, a 75-year-old Kill Devil Hills resident, dials her daughter in Carova Beach. It's long-distance. She pays about $60 monthly for the calls. But that should change soon.
On Tuesday, the North Carolina Public Utilities Commission in Raleigh approved extending local, toll-free calling between northern Dare and Currituck County beach communities.
In six months to a year, Carolina Telephone customers in the Corolla, Grandy and Coinjock areas will be able to call people and places in Duck, Southern Shores, Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills and Nags Head at local rates.
The new service will cost residential customers 22 cents and businesses 58 cents each month. It will eliminate long-distance tolls between the growing Corolla resort area and beach towns from Duck to South Nags Head.
This week's decision came as good news to people like Miller, who retired with her husband on the Outer Banks 14 years ago.
``We call back and forth every day,'' Miller said. ``It certainly will help us.''
Efforts to unite Currituck Outer Banks beach communities with their neighbors to the south began last fall when Kitty Hawk resident Dave Holton formed the Inter-County Communications Committee.
``The group was formed to gather local support among community groups and commissioners in both Dare and Currituck counties,'' he said, ``in order to give a unified presentation to the Public Utilities Commission and to show both the need and desirability of combiningCorolla and the Dare beaches into one calling area.''
Holton, the former manager of a Corolla resort, said tourists were frequently confused by Outer Banks calling patterns. Now, Corolla customers can place free calls as far as Edenton - a two-hour drive away. Those same people, however, must pay to dial Duck, which is just 15 minutes down the road.
The expanded service involves only Currituck's 453 exchange, which also includes the Coinjock and Grandy areas on the mainland. Powells Point and Jarvisburg, though geographically closer, are not part of the new toll-free plan.
Wake Forest-based Carolina Telephone had asked the utilities commission to place a moratorium on all new exchange-area services. The company plans to offer toll-free or metered-call options within customers' 40-mile radius. The Corolla-Dare exchange was permitted because the request was filed before the suspension of activity - and because the calling area involved a geographically unique region, Holton said.
``This was the one exception to the moratorium that the Public Utilities Commission has granted in North Carolina,'' he added.
An April 1993 calling study indicated almost 46 percent of Currituck Outer Banks telephone users regularly place long-distance calls to Dare County.
The new service will add about 3,000 local numbers in Dare County and 18,000 toll-free numbers for Currituck County customers.
Dare County's Roanoke and Hatteras islands will not be a part of the telephone expansion. Calls from Corolla to Manteo, Rodanthe or villages farther south will still carry long-distance rates.
``The reason these particular areas were not included,'' Holton said, ``is because the calling studies that were made did not indicate sufficient calling volume from Corolla to these areas to warrant expanded service.'' by CNB