GREAT SYSTEM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 3, 4 January 1941, Page 8

GREAT SYSTEM.

U.S.A. TELEPHONES.

MODERN DEVELOPMENTS.

• SewiUren million tcleplioncti—alums half of the w orklVi totn! — are controlleil liy the. Hell oii;aii>iitioii in the L'nitc.i >tater, and though X«"w Zealand's -hare of the world'* j<.ail i* le>- than >ix per lent, a New Ziai.ind telephone engineer, Mr. l'hark>< S. l'iank. of Wellington, who >peJH two year.- in the States under a praut from the Commonwealth Fund Fellow «hip, \\;i* ?i\en e\ery faeility by tlie Bcil urganin#iiun, with which he worked, bcin:; treated as if he represented an organisation <>f comparable. si/.c with the Hell one. the greatest in the telephone world. Mr. l'iank. who is a I'o-t mill Telofiiapli Department engineer, returned to Wellington a few divs

""When 1 knew that 1 na« goini to spend two years with the Bell system.*' aid Mr. Plank in an interview with the "Wellington Kveuinp Poi-t.*' "1 thought I would learn a j;reiit deal, or there wa< to know over there, but !k--eatu»c of the vast amount of knowledge available, I »,1« only able To scratch the -in face."'

Ilie. Bell organisation had a staff of about X>O.o(K>. s-aid Mr. I'lank. lt< laboratory workers mimltered 4»!C>O. of whom JtKVI were world renowned engineer-. ]>hy~i, i-ts and thcnii~t*. They had reached an advance.l Mase of tPehiiival de\e.loiunent and cflieieney. As an instance. Mr. Plank quote:! the fact that when he onii> i>lll throtigli a lonp di.-tauif rail from Now York to San FrancWo over u 3200 mile land line, the time between lii 3 >j.eakin™ to the. operator in New York and his to tinwanted pcr»ou in San Francisco was ol seconds. Teletype Service. More and more ji.-p was beJn?: made of the teletypewriter service provided by the Bell orcani-.ition. Mr. Plank. In all the maiu industrial cities in the State* there, were exchanges through which lirm- equipped -wifh teletypewriter.-; could be connected "itli one" another, and many firms had permanent teletypewriter circuits between different branches. The advantage of the system by which a printed message wa« made available MiiiultaneoiwOy in two or moic places was obviou*.

Another activity of the Bell orpinisation \va« the provision of radio-telephone channel* between New York and tlucapitals of KurojK-. New ? paper reporters made, daily use of these channels to fur-ni.-h the American public with firet-han,! information from Kurope. their voiivconiinp to New York by radio-telephone and the broadcast to the United States o\er the radio networks.

The American Telephone, and Telefrraph Company, which controlled the Bell .-ysfenis, was a socialit-cd organisation, >aid Mr. Plank, to the extent that none of its VoO.OOO owned a* much a> one per cent of :hc. .-tock. Tribute To Americans. Mr. Plank worked in ihe head oflicv of the company in New York for much of the two years he was in the State-. Ihe other Mvrcn or eipht months ho spent in \i>itin;i a number of operating companies of the Bell r-y-tem. and h7covered all tS»State<-. Everywhere he went he. was treated a» <-ik> of tho own engineer:', and ho o.u!(l not speak too highly of the kin.lline>of the American people. This WJ)f . ~ practical expression of one of the idcaK beJiind the Commonwealth Fund Followship—that of promoting cltver AngloAmerican co-oj>eration.

Mr. Plank eaid that the directors of the Conunonwcalth Fund thought a lot of the New Zealanders to whom it had given fellowship?, and practically every year one or more N>w Zeal.in<l"ers had been selected. Two wore in the United Stato at present. They were Mr. 11. Hume., a Public Works Department onpineer, and Mr. D. \V. Woodward, nf the Department of Industries and Commerce, who was studyins public administration.