THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, December 21, 1994 TAG: 9412210258
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: COROLLA LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
A vacationing couple once stopped Dave Holton for directions to a movie theater in Edenton, about two hours' drive from here.
When asked why they'd drive all the way to Edenton when there was another theater just down the road in Kitty Hawk, the couple expressed surprise.
They'd assumed Edenton was closer because it was a local call for Corolla telephone customers while Kitty Hawk was not.
Holton used that incident Monday evening to help persuade the Currituck County Board of Commissioners to support a local committee's efforts to change the Corolla area's telephone service.
The Inter-County Communications Committee plans to go before the Public Utilities Committee in Raleigh on Jan. 23 and ask for free telephone calls in the Corolla-Coinjock-Grandy areas and several Dare County communities.
Under the plan, Currituck County telephone customers with a 453 exchange would be able to make toll-free calls to 255, 261, 441 and 480 exchanges in the Duck, Sanderling, Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills and Nags Head areas.
Current toll-free service areas would not be changed, Holton said.
``It's an everyday occurrence for people on the Outer Banks to make a long-distance call to someone on the beach,'' said Holton, general manager of the Corolla Light resort.
The expanded coverage would add 22 cents to affected Currituck County residents' monthly bills and 58 cents for business customers. Dare County counterparts would pay 25 cents and 59 cents for the service, Holton said.
All but Commissioner Eldon L. Miller Jr. endorsed the Corolla-based committee's efforts and agreed to ask Dare County commissioners and municipality leaders for their support.
However, several commissioners questioned the exclusion of the mainland's 491 exchange in the package.
That telephone prefix includes Jarvisburg and Powells Point, which are geographically closer to the beach than the Coinjock and Grandy areas, which are being considered with the Corolla expansion because they share the same exchange.
Holton said that adding exchanges in the request might jeapardize its approval by the public utilities commission.
``They felt like if we added 491 to the request, it would kill it,'' Holton said Monday.
``This is a window of opportunity,'' he added. ``And I'm talking about this window is cracked. It's not wide open.''
The state utilities group agreed to hear local residents' request because it was made in early 1993, prior to Carolina Telephone asking for a moratorium on all new exchange area services.
The Wake Forest-based company wants to replace local exchange services with a new plan that offers toll-free and metered-call options within a customer's 40-mile radius, Holton said.
A calling survey done in April 1993 showed 45.8 percent of Currituck Outer Banks telephone users regularly placed long-distance calls to or from the Dare County northern beaches.
That figure is above the 40 percent calling level recommended for extended area service, Holton said.
Earlier this year, Carolina Telephone customers approved a toll-free exchange between Hatteras Island and Manteo.
Manteo, the Dare County seat on Roanoke Island, would not be included in the proposed Currituck-Dare expanded service area. by CNB