CABLE OR WIRELESS.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 168, 17 July 1924, Page 3

CABLE OR WIRELESS.

THEIR INTERDEPENDENCE. A KNOTTY POINT. (Prom Onr Special Correspondent.! LONDON, May 23. j, A discussion as to "Cable communiea- t tions and how to use them" touches : Dominion interests so closely that w« transmit at some length the chief speech since it devoted attention to the new competitor, wireless. Many people declared that the day of; the cable was over. Similar!} 7 people had .said that the cable would supplant the mail. "The truth, is, of course, , " t'.ie lecturer continued, "that the world is not too small for the cable and wireless jto exist side by side. The demand for, , speedy communication is so insistent and ! pressing that there can hardly be too I. I many means available for supplying it. i', I And though wireless has demonstrated i its great practical value in very many j p different ways, it still remain?, true that ' the submarine cable, with its world-wide < , I organisation, privacy of transmission, i and comparative freedom from atmos- | pheric disturbances, is the most reliable, \ swift, and secret method of international j communication. In so far as the ser- j vices provided by wireless and the cable j overlap, there is undoubtedly room fur j! some kind of understanding by which the | wireless and the cable interests of this country should work in collaboration. Such an arrangement, if in the future it should be considered desirable or feasible, would offer great advantages to t!io users of both systems, and would promote efficiency by the elimination vi coetly and unnecessary competition.' . Illustrating some of the new methods of cable transmission, the lecturer ex- , plained how automatic transmission had | so accelerated service that the result of a cricket match in Melbourne could be I read in England within a few minutes of I the fall of the last wicket, although the \ message would pass through six intermediate retransmitting points. A still newer invention, known in America as "wired wireless," made it possible to , transmit two messages at once in the same direction. Thus local traffic ctwld ! be very heavy and yet not interfere with ' long-distance traffic passing through thj same relay stations. In all the immense services of the cables the error was wry small. In his own company's returns, j which took careful account of all niis- | takes, it was shown that out of 806,275 j words punched by hand the percentages lof error was 0.190 (less than one in I 500), and in 1,724,218 words punched fey : machine the percentage of error was 0.037. The percentage error in a month's grand total of 2,625,296 words was O.OSti. In conclusion the lecturer begged business men to remember that the busy hours in a cable office were batwee:; -A p.m. and 7 p.m., and urged them to make use of tbe slack hours as much as possible. He also suggested that the employment of a competent cable clirk with a good knowledge of coding, decoding, "routcing," and departmental division was an advantage. It is pertinent to add to this that the report of the Great Northern Telegraph Company, of Denmark, just issued, is' chiefly remarkable for the light which j !it throws upon the competition exist- • ing between wireless and cable companies. The company's profit is practically j the same as that for the previous year, I with a 22 per cent dividend. But with j the Russian route in full working order land a number of improvements in opera- ' tion , better results hail been hoped for. That they were not achieved is due to competition by wireless, most of which jare owned by the Governments of the ■ countries in which they operate. The i board of this Danish company complains I that unless a telegram handed in at a , ' post office is marked "by cable" it is 1 'always sent by wireless. This competi- i tion has not yet arisen as regards the i Far East traffic, but the directors see clearly that it will arise before long, and I then, says the report, "the cable compan- | ies would be placed competitively in an unfavourable position, which they"\vould | scarcely allow to continue for any length j of time," a conclusion which obviously could only be met by the cables lowering their rates. This would equally obviously result in lower dividends unless I the company can make as yet unforeseen economies. j .