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Some residents of Atwood and Claypool want to be able to call five Warsaw exchanges without paying long-distance charges.
The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission has announced that 127 Atwood residents and 100 Claypool residents have petitioned the IURC to extend the local-calling service area to include both communities.
GTE North, which provides phone service to Claypool and Atwood, will include ballots in November phone bills, according to Michael Leppert, IURC spokesperson.
"The residents will have three choices. They want to extend the local calling service to their communities and are willing to pay all of the costs; or they want to extend the service and share the costs with Warsaw telephone customers; or, third, they don't want to extend the service at all," Leppert said.
If at least 50 percent of the customers in Claypool and Atwood approve the plan, at a shared cost with Warsaw customers, Warsaw residents would then have to vote to approve the plan, he said.
If the Extended Areas Service petition is approved, calls to and from those communities with the 267, 268, 269, 371 and 372 exchanges would no longer be toll calls.
Without Warsaw's participation, Atwood residents would pay an additional EAS surcharge of $6.64 more per month for the next five years and Claypool residents would pay a surcharge of $9.45. Both communities would be charged an additional 82 cents due to a rate group reclassification.
If Warsaw residents choose to participate in the plan, they would pay an additional 24 cents per month for the Atwood extension and 9 cents for the Claypool extension of service. Claypool and Atwood would pay a monthly surcharge of $5.67 and the 82-cent reclassification fee.
Leppert said there will be public meetings explaining the extension and costs scheduled in each community prior to the ballots being distributed. The times and locations of those meetings will be announced later.
