Goodrich and Hadley phone bills will go up this winter, when calling areas for CenturyTel customers expand.
The Michigan Public Service Commission recently approved a June 10 proposal to expand calling areas for local customers of CenturyTel Midwest-Michigan, Inc.
For an extra $4.95 per month, Goodrich and Hadley customers will be able to call specific areas’which previously meant incurring toll charges’up to 2,000 minutes per month before paying a 3-cent per minute charge.
Currently, Goodrich customers can call Flint and Grand Blanc. When the approved plan takes effect, the local calling area will also include Holly, Davison, Ortonville, and Hadley.
For Hadley customers, only Lapeer numbers are now considered local calls, but soon Davison, Goodrich, Metamora, Ortonville, and Oxford exchanges will be included in the calling area.
Adjacent exchange calling plans became mandatory for large phone service providers like SBC and Verizon when the Michigan Communications Act was amended approximately four years ago.
‘We’d get calls and letters from customers saying ‘that’s not fair’my neighbor in the next town can call me but I can’t call them,?? said CenturyTel spokesperson Theresa Maliskey in a 2003 interview with The Citizen.
The new plan is estimated to take effect by early next year, although details aren’t yet confirmed, Maliskey said.