ACS scheduled to open Wasilla outlet

WASILLA -- Beginning next month, Alaska Communications Systems cellular phone users in the Valley can be called by local land-based telephones without a long distance charge.

Currently, Valley users of ACS cell phones have local Municipality of Anchorage phone numbers. No toll is charged for calls

from Anchorage to

Mat-Su ACS customers.

However, if someone is calling in the Mat-Su via a traditional phone line -- even just across the street -- they must pay a long distance charge to reach an ACS phone.

"We have not had the ability to sell services in the Valley," said Ruth Sandstrom, vice president of wireless for ACS. "Now ACS has acquired a license on another spectrum and we recently started our deployment on that spectrum."

She estimates the new setup will be operating by mid-November.

The company will open a store at the intersection of Parks Highway and the Palmer-Wasilla Highway, next to Burger King, Sandstrom said. Four people have been hired to staff the outlet, with another three or four still to be hired.

When the store opens, Valley residents with ACS phones may choose whether they want to keep their current Anchorage phone number or get a new Valley number. It depends on where most calls to an ACS customer originate as to which choice is best, Sandstrom said.

She said ACS has between 80,000 and 84,000 customers statewide. That currently includes only a "limited" number of clients in the Valley, Sandstrom said.

"We're hoping to sign up some new customers" once the Wasilla store opens, she said.