North Rock telephone subscribers have experienced difficulties with the service, but it seems that the problems are not unusual and the company claims that demand for the service has exceeded expectations.

Some callers from the United States have been unable to dial North Rock numbers as their local carriers do not recognise the new North Rock prefixes between 540 and 589. The problem does not affect callers from other countries.

North Rock sales and marketing manager Vicki Coelho said that the company had hired Telcordia, an American telecommunications company, to inform the thousands of carriers in the US of the new prefixes beginning last March, but some have been slow to update their databases. Government is also responsible for informing overseas carriers of new prefixes.

Ms Coelho said that the prefix problem was beyond North Rock?s control and she could not say when all US carriers would update their databases. ?The problem is usually in rural areas,? she said.

The problem has affected other Bermuda telecoms providers in the past ? the Bermuda Telephone Company has added new prefixes that were temporarily unavailable to US callers.

?In fairness to North Rock, it is always a bit of a challenge to make sure that all of the entities in the US turn on a new number range,? said AT&T Wireless General Manager Jonathan Koshar.

?It?s not a hard thing to do,? he said, but added that Bermuda prefixes are often not prioritised since they represent relatively few telephone numbers.

North Rock subscribers have also experienced problems with directory assistance ? 411 calls are directed to North Rock?s offices in Hamilton, which are unstaffed outside of normal working hours. Ms Coelho said the company was working to add directory services, which some of the other carriers outsource to BTC.

Customers are also unable to access the overseas operator when they dial 00, but neither can customers of AT&T Wireless or Mobility, BTC?s sister company.

North Rock introduced its telephone service, which uses aerials mounted on customers? roofs, at the end of September.

The company decided to launch earlier than planned because Hurricane Fabian left many BTC customers without phone service.