WAITING FOR TELEPHONES.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 213, 7 September 1921, Page 3

WAITING FOR TELEPHONES.

A SERIOUS SHORTAGE. (By Telegraph.—Special to "Star/]) CHRISTOmjRCH, this day. Speaking to a Press representative Mr. J. McDermott, District Telegraph Engineer, made it clear that no permanent relief from the present acute, shortage of telephones is possible until the new automatic exchange has been installed. On the switchboard of the present ChristchuTch exchange there is not one number available for new subscribers, and this, apart from difficulty caused by a shortage of telephone instruments and certain classes of cable, is sufficient to explain the definite re? fnsal that the department must give to all applications for connections in the city. Throughout Kew Zealand there are 6531 applications for telephones on the waiting list, and this does not nearly \ represent the full number who desire to be connected, as many refrain from putting in their applications, knowing the chances of securing connections are slight. Xumbers on the waiting list in the four provinces are as follows:—Auckland, 2716; Wellington, 2,400; Canter-,, bury, 1090; Otago, 625. Departmental officers have to submit to a gTeat deal of grumbling on account of inability to fulfil applications for telephones, and at times cases of real hardship are brought under their notice, but they are powerless to do anything in the face of lack of switchboard accommodation and supplies of instruments. Supplies which come to hand in small quantities from time to time, are already embarked for outlying districts where applicants have been on the waiting list as back as 1913. In dealing with these districts, the department takes applications in the order they were received, and also endeavours to attend to those districts where there are sufficient applicants to warrant a gang of men being sent to the place to complete the work in one operation rather than deal with individual applications at various times.