The surcharge is 10 cents a minute or $6 per hour, which can significantly boost a person's monthly bill. If a customer spends only five hours - the time included with the standard monthly charge of nearly $10 - on AOL, that would triple the bill to about $30.

The company notified Hawaii customers of the new surcharge last week via an electronic message. The message said two local access numbers - what computer users call to connect to the service - were being discontinued starting today. A third number still is available to Oahu customers, who won't have to pay the surcharge.

Neighbor island customers now have to call a 1-800 number to connect to the service, which results in the surcharge. If they connect using the Oahu access number, they would not have to pay the surcharge but would pay higher interisland toll rates for the long-distance call.

A company spokeswoman said Maui customers are scheduled to get a local access number within a few months.

Vienna, Va.-based America OnLine used to have a 20-cents-per-minute surcharge for all Hawaii customers but that was dropped in December 1994.

CompuServe Corp., the other major online provider, imposes a surcharge for all but Oahu and Maui customers, a customer representative said.