THE TELEPHONE

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LVIII, Issue 10356, 17 April 1930, Page 5

THE TELEPHONE

Promotion of More Extensive Use. A WOI'.VCEME.VT BY PRIME MINISTER. Rotorua, April 17 The application of business principles to State enterprises, announced by the Postmaster-General (the Kt. Hon. Sir Joseph Ward), in a statement issued to-day, is about to be further extended in the Post and Telegraph Department by the establishment of a commercial branch. At the outset the ’activities of the commercial branch will be confined to I tin telephone service. Broadly the function of the branch will be the promoting of a more extensive use of the telephone, the fostering and maintaining of cordial relations between the Department and the sections of the community which it serves, and the planning and promoting of the healthy and well-bal-anced development of the telephone service to ensure its continuance as a self-supporting unit of the Post

and Telegraph Department, in the carrying out of these functions, in which personal contact with subscribers and prospective subscribers will play a most important part, the cofnmercial branch will make a close study of the telephone requirements of all classes of the community. Business agents will seek out and supply prospective subscribers with full particulars of the various classes of the telephone service available, and will assist generally in selecting the class of service best suited to individual requirements. Salesmanship will largely supplant the method of “order taking” that has prevailed in the past. With a view to making more attractive terms under which the telephone service may be outained, a system is being introduced un-

tier which new as well as existing subscribers may, if they so desire, •pay their telephone rental monthly in advance instead of half-yearly in advance as at present. A schedule of rates for monthly payments is now being prepared. It has also been arranged to extend during the summer months Sunday and holiday exchange attendance at a number of seaside and tourist resorts—-such as Eastbourne, Picton, Helensville, Akaroa and Queenstown —which on Sundays and holidays have a large community of interest with an important city or centre nearby and which in the.past have had only a very limited attendance during week-ends. Other innovations will be introduced from time to time with a view of giving more personal service and further popularising the telephone as a means of communication of enabling subscribers generally to obtain the greatest possible benefit from their telephone installations.