Waiouru toll free area stays limited

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 7, Issue 343, 10 July 1990, Page 6

Waiouru toll free area stays limited

By

CLARE

FENN

The thorny issue of the extremely limited toll-free area for Waiouru has surfaced again.

Organisations such as the Resource Centre, the Health Watch Committee and the Helping Professionals Group have expressed their concern over the limited toll-free area. The area is just over two kilometres in radius around Waiouru which

obviously excludes Taihape, Ohakune and Raetihi from the tollfree area. Telecom Customer Services in Hamilton were contacted for comment but only supplied a letter which was very short on specific details. However, after further

contact with Telecom they replied to the charge that Waiouru residents have to pay an increased phone rental for no increase in services by saying that they have updated services but that these are not always obvious to the public. Telecom says they have replaced and modernised equipment and undertaken a "tariff rebalancing programme" which "realigns costs to

Telecom and its customers" so previous subsidies on line rentals are now being removed. Telecom claims that Waiouru now has a "standard service" which includes services such as individual lines, STD and ISD. The limited toll-free area is linked, says Telecom, to the "local communitieS of interest" which were established by the Post Office. As the size and

nature of these communities change Telecom has, in some cases, extended the toll-free areas. Telecom states that charging is related to the cost of supplying the services,. where the extent of the toll-free area is defined by the "local network asset base." Telecom has no plans to extend Waiouru's tollfree area. Telecom offers customers the option of

the "foreign exchange service" which means a customer can pay extra to be linked to a different exchange, thus getting toll-free dialing to their chosen exchange. Now that Telecom have stated their position Waiouru residents will continue to underpatronise the services and businesses in Taihape, Ohakune and Raetihi, say the Waiouru community groups. Telecom's position on

this issue reinforces both the real and perceived feeling of isolation by Waiouru residents. Recent denials by Telecom to the charge that they are less popular than the Inland Revenue appear not to be true, at least in Waiouru. And the claim that people are "generally satisfied with Telecom" also appears to be in dispute, especially among its rural customers..