Talking to Express Newsline on Sunday, DoT General Manager Rakesh Babu said that the facility had been made available by the DoT's Circle office, Ahmedabad, two days ago. ``Now all the Net users in Vadodara have to do is dial the access code number 172 followed by the code of the service provider and get connected at local call charges,'' he said.

Babu added that three different service provider codes had been arranged by the DoT to be used by the TCPIP, Shell and Student account holders: 226, 227 and 228 respectively.

``Thus, a TCPIP account holder will be first required to dial 172 followed by the code number 226 to gain access to the service,'' he said.

Talking to Express Newsline, city-based architect Nandita Amin said, ``Though I don't have time to surf the Net, the new facility will be a boon since I can access the Internet anytime of the day''.

Usually, she said, she would restrict her Internet-related work till after 9 p.m, both to save on telephone bills and because getting through to Ahmedabad during the day was next to impossible. ``But if I can access Ahmedabad at local call rates, it'll be easier to get through and my phone bills will come down'', Amin said.