Howard Lake-Waverly
Herald, Oct. 28, 2002
Howard Lake approves joining metro calling area
By Julie Yurek
About two-thirds of Howard Lake callers voted to add the metro area into the local calling exchange, which was announced by the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) Thursday.
However, the service will not be available for another year. The increase of basic phone service will not take effect until that time.
Callers will not be charged until they are actually able to place a call with the service, said Sprint representative Karyn Gibson.
Howard Lake callers approved the extended area service by 646 votes (67.1 percent) to 317 votes (32.9 percent).
A total of 58.9 percent of the customers eligible to vote returned their ballots to the PUC.
The commission conducted the voting from Aug. 21 to Oct. 2. Residential and business customers received one ballot for every phone line.
Metro area calling also passed in Maple Lake, with 1,366 votes (68.5 percent) in favor to 627 votes (31.5 percent) against. A total of 64.5 percent of the customers eligible to vote in Maple Lake returned their ballots.
Twin Cities prefixes to be local calls for Howard Lake:
507 = prefixes of 262, 364, and 665
612 = all
651 = most
763 = most
952 = all
Increase per line for users:
Residential = $10.24 per line, regardless of what it is used for (i.e. Internet).
Business = $20.50 per line
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