Telephones: My Number: Dial I-Am-Vain

My Number: Dial I-Am-Vain

Is your phone number dull, uninspiring and difficult for friends to remember? Maybe you would get more calls if you changed your lifeless digits to whiz- kid, tuff-guy or BUCKS-UP. Several local telephone companies plan as early as October to start offering personalized numbers to consumers, a service they have long made available to business customers. Taking note of the boom in vanity license plates, companies like New York Telephone believe they could entice hundreds of thousands of customers to pay extra for the numbers. Pacific Bell estimates it would impose a $10 changeover fee and a $1.50 monthly charge.

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