OVERLOADING OF EXCHANGE

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25366, 13 December 1947, Page 2

OVERLOADING OF EXCHANGE

CHILDREN’S USE OF TELEPHONES An appeal to parents to discourage children from making telephone calls during the peak hours was made yesterday by the District Telegraph Engineer, Mr H O. Tyrrell. A check of calls on the manual exchange, made yesterday morning during a busy period, showed that half the callers were children. In the ’last few days subscribers had sometimes had to wait as long as a minute to get a dialling tone, Mr Tyrrell said. The department had been seriously concerned at the overloading of the exchange during busy hours. The peak periods, he said, were from 9.30 a.m. to 11 a.m., and 2 pan. to 4 p.m. Yesterday morning’s check also revealed that 47 subscribers had left their telephone receivers off the hooks, Mr Tyrrell said. That caused a dead loading of the exchange, and those particular telephones had been out of action if other subscribers had wanted to call them.

-Mr Tyrrell also asked that subscribers themselves should not make unnecessary calls during the busy periods, so that urgent calls would not be delayed.