High Stakes Phone Game now underway

About a third of a century ago, one phone provider kicked out another in Point Roberts and as a result, everybody’s phone number switched to a new area code and phone book. Although the idea of controlling a landline phone system and determining which calls were billed as long-distance sound like ancient history today, it was a big deal back in the mid-1980s. Headlines across the front page of the All Point Bulletin in February 1987 blared, “High Stakes Phone Game Now Underway.”

Although residential phone service began as late as 1955, B.C. Tel had provided business phone services in Point Roberts for a half-century before that, initially to the canneries. In the summer of 1985 a small phone company from the southern tip of Whidbey Island noticed that while B.C. Tel was franchised in Whatcom County, they had never filed regulatory papers at the state level with the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission. B.C. Tel countered that they had grandfather rights to Point Roberts due to their long history on the Point. The state rejected this in June 1986, found B.C. Tel to have no legal grounds to provide service here, and declared Point Roberts an “unassigned telephone territory,” an action without precedent in Washington history.

As three companies submitted bids to the state for the right to provide the Point’s phone system, the number one issue among local residents was the continuation of free calling to all of the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. This hope was dashed as B.C. Tel indicated the arrangement would not continue.  Bids were submitted by what was then known as Whidbey Telephone Company, Inter-Island and a group of local residents known as Point Roberts Telecom who wanted to establish a local phone system as a cooperative venture, with Whidbey prevailing in a June 1987 decision.

This is the 35th anniversary of the change-over, which happened June 4, 1988. Everybody in Point Roberts moved from British Columbia’s 604 area code to what was western Washington’s area code at the time, 206. The ability to call any number in the Lower Mainland for free ended, and thereafter only calls within Point Roberts were free local calls. The Point’s phone book listings moved from the Vancouver phone book to an appendix at the back of the southern Whidbey Island phone book. Residents were shocked when the cost of a residential line increased as much as 40 percent, while rates for business lines dropped significantly.

The Point Roberts History Center has information on the fierce historical battles to provide utilities on the Point. Stop by Fridays (11 a.m.- 2 p.m.) or Saturdays (10 a.m. – 3 p.m.) or call our landline at 360/945-7477.