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Voters working on toll-free calling

“This is our new campaign,” said Point Roberts Registered Voters Association president Tom Hollett, outlining the group’s most recent project – elimination of telephone toll charges for calls between Point Roberts and the rest of Whatcom County.

The issue of local calling service for Point Roberts has lain dormant since long distance was eliminated within the rest of Whatcom County in 1999. County council member Barbara Brenner, one of the original proponents of county-wide local calling, reawakened the issue at the voters annual meeting in March. “You don’t have anywhere you can call without paying,” she said. “Something’s got to change here but be patient. It took people living 15 minutes outside Bellingham 15 years to be able to call the county courthouse without paying.”

At the May 8 voters association meeting Hollett outlined the steps the community needed to take to get a larger local calling area based on the requirements of the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (WUTC). The first step would be to make a request to Whidbey Telephone Company (WTC), asking that they eliminate tolls for calls within the county. “Whidbey can, and probably will, come back and say we’ll waive the tolls but add more to the base charge for phone service, and we don’t want that either,” Hollett said. “According to the WUTC if the WTC response is negative we can take it to the WUTC commissioners as a complaint.”

To file a complaint for a larger calling area, proponents need to submit evidence from at least 26 community members that they are paying long distance to contact providers of basic needs: schools, doctors, commercial services like stores or a pharmacy, government offices. “We need to look into whether it applies broadly in the community or only to a handful of people,” Hollett said. “The more names and reasons we have the better. We only need 26 but we want 200.”

Once a complaint is filed with the WUTC they must come back with a decision within 10 months. Commission regulations state that they “may expand local calling areas only under the most exceptional circumstances,” pointing to optional calling plans and wireless services, where charges are assessed only to those who use the services and not spread out through the whole customer base, as preferred options.

WTC attorney Robert Snyder said they had studied expanding the Point Roberts calling area to Blaine, Ferndale and Bellingham in the early 1990s and found that it would not meet WUTC criteria. “When you establish extended area service it’s not free. It has a cost and customarily what happens is local rates go up to pay for it. You need to ascertain there are enough people who would benefit to make sure the need is widely enough distributed to warrant an added increase to everyone.”

Point Roberts residents now pay long distance to other parts of Whatcom County, but they don’t all pay the same amount. Eighteen different long distance providers offer different plans for western Washington with costs ranging from eight to 12 cents a minute. Point Roberts Long Distance, a branch of WTC, charges 12 cents a minute, but offers a calling plan for $4.95 a month that reduces the amount to 10 cents a minute.

Board members agreed to gather information from residents about the need for toll-free calling before making a formal application to the telephone company. Interested community members should contact Hollett at 945-0799..

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