BIG REDUCTIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 104, 4 May 1936, Page 16

BIG REDUCTIONS.

TELEPHONE TOLLS. NEW RATES IN BRITAIN. LONDON, April 10. Major G. C. Tryon. the PostmasterGeneral, has announced that from May 1 onwards the maximum telephone charge for a three-minute trunk call between any two places on the mainland of Great Britain would be 2/(i between 5 a.m. and 7 p.m. and 1/ during the remainder of the twenty-four hours. This step would afford reductions in rates during both the morning and afternoon periods .between all places over 200 miles apart, and in addition the Postmaster-General proposes to reduce the rates during the morning period for all distances from 35 to 200 miles. Thus the present charges for a three-minute morning call between London and Birmingham will be reduced from 2/0 to 2/, between Xondon and Manchester from 3/ to 2/(1, and between London and Edinburgh, Glasgow or Aberdeen from 4/ to '2/0.

For calls between the mainland and Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and the islands of Mull, lona, Inlay and Lewis the new reductions will'apply, but the present additional cable charges will remain unaltered. After the first three minutes calls beyond thirty-live miles \vill be chargeable in periods of one minute at one-third of the three minutes rates. The rates for fixed-time calls and contract calls will be reduced in proportion to those for ordinary calls. These reductions will cost the Post Oflice £000,000 a year 011 the basis of the present telephone traffic, but the Postmaster-General is satisfied that, like previous reductions, they will be justified by increased traffic. So much has long-distance telephoning been cheapened in the last eighteen months that the longest inland trunk call, which in September, 1034, cost 7/0 by day and 3/9 by night, will now cost only 2/0 and 1/ respectively. The new reductions will chiefly benefit business men by cheapening trunk calls in the busy morning period which was previously covered by the intermediate rate, as most of the big centres of industry (Manchester and Liverpool are an exceptional case) are more than fifty miles apart. _ _ - Another alteration in charges which will also come into force 011 May 1 is connected w;th the extension of the automatic dialling system, which is being gradually equipped to deal with all calls up to fifteen miles. For this j system charges for local calls, which at present vary according to the time of day, must be made uniform. Thus the morning charge -for distances between 10 to 12J miles will be reduced from 4d to 3d, and for distances between 12J and lo miles from 5d to 4d. As a necessary part of the change the evening charge for 12A to 15 miles will be raised from 3d to 4d, but the public will gain on balance, as in this distance range there is much more morning than evening traffic. The Postmaster-General forecasts a further change, not this time a change of rate, which will come into force 111 most parts of the country some time this summer. This is the introduction of an automatic time signal, similar to that used by the 8.8.C., which will be sounded as a warning twelve seconds before the end of each three-minute periods of a trunk call. Tt is hoped that this will not prove so distracting as the voice of an operator saying "three

minutes." The Post Office is preparing ft series of seventy coloured maps showing the long-distance telephone charges from eacli of seventy cities and towns, and a copy of the appropriate map will be sent to each telephone subscriber.