California and the West : Phone Company Makes a Borderline Exception : Utilities: In a stalemate involving cut-off California customers, Nevada company agrees to hook up ailing woman, 85. But other residents must pin hopes on settlement proposal.

Seeking to prevent what critics say could be a public relations fiasco, Nevada Bell has begun phone service for an ailing 85-year-old grandmother, one of several rural California residents who have sued the utility for refusing to provide them service.

But the company’s position has not changed in regard to 35 other residents without phone service who live on the California side of Sandy Valley, an isolated community split by a state border. Nevada Bell says it has no legal jurisdiction to offer service to them.

Company officials say they made an exception for elderly Rose Rosequist because she suffers from several life-threatening ailments and needs a telephone to keep in touch with her doctors and family.

“The reason Mrs. Rosequist got phone service is because she had a medical hardship,” said Nevada Bell spokeswoman Jennifer Whitty. “Our position toward the others remains the same. It’s plain and simple: We can’t give them service.”

For years, Nevada Bell provided service to the 80 California residents of Sandy Valley. But in January, the phone company changed that policy, refusing to offer phones to new residents of the isolated Mojave Desert community. The company says it has no legal authority to install phones across state lines, and that phones installed in the past were the result of “mistakes.”

Rosequist, who for months used an old walkie-talkie to keep in contact with the outside world, says she is overjoyed with her new phone service.

She said the Nevada Bell people knocked on her door about a week ago. “When they told me who they were, I said ‘Great, when are you going to get me a phone?’ And they said ‘How about tomorrow?’ ”

Residents of Sandy Valley, 40 miles southwest of Las Vegas, say the California Public Utilities Commission has not yet ruled on whether to allow service to the far-flung community. In May, the residents filed suit in U.S. District Court to force Nevada Bell to provide them phones until the PUC ruling is made.

Attorneys for the residents suggested that the decision to offer service to Rosequist, who suffers from breast cancer, diabetes and emphysema, was a face-saving tactic.

“Well, they’ve just taken care of our most sympathetic plaintiff,” said Jay Young, who represents the Sandy Valley residents without phone service. Young said the “medical hardship” argument suggests that the utility is making up the rules as it goes along. If one Sandy Valley resident gets service, he said, they all should.

“All along they’ve said it was illegal to provide the phone service, and now all of a sudden they’re giving it to one person. Why not just go ahead and provide phones to everyone, instead of discriminating and operating on a case-by-case basis?”

Before granting Rosequist service, the utility’s attorneys insisted that Young agree not to raise her situation in court, Young said. No new equipment was required for Rosequist to receive phone service.

Whitty said Nevada Bell plans to propose a settlement to the standoff by Tuesday.

Rosequist, who has 22 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren, said the phone hasn’t stopped ringing since it went in. “Now it rings almost too much sometimes,” she said. “But I’m so glad I’ve got it. It gives me a lot of confidence, and I need that.

“The ring of a telephone is a nice, comforting sound to an old woman. With a phone by your side, you don’t get nearly so lonesome.”