DEMAND FOR MORE TELEPHONES

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27444, 2 September 1954, Page 9

DEMAND FOR MORE TELEPHONES

Number In N.Z. Likely To Triple POST OFFICE ESTIMATE FOR 1979 (From Our Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, September 1. The Post and Telegraph Department now has 334,580 telephone subscribers, and expects to have more than three times as many in 25 years’ time* The department’s annual report, tabled in the House of Representatives today, says it is generally accepted that New Zealand’s population will increase to 3,000,000 within the next two or three decades, and there can reasonably be expected to be a continuing increase in business activity and industry, and a continuance of the present marked trend towards an

use of telecommunication facilities. “If this is so, it would be reasonable to assume that there would be in New Zealand within the next 25 years 1,000,000 telephones, that toll calls would number 75,000,000 a year, and that there wotald be a big use by businesses of direct office-to-office teleprinter and facsimile services,” says the report. ' Telecommunications services are therefore likely to be fax*behind those of other comparable countries, the report says, if the trunk network is not increased to provide adequate circuits for toll traffic and for leased point-to-point services; if local exchange services are not developed to do away with multi-party lines of eight and greater numbers of subscribers; and if the smaller towns and rural areas are not receiving 24-hour automatic telephone services. Telephone Waiting Lists There are 397 telephone exchanges in New Zealand, and at 157 of these there are waiting lists, says the report. In most of these exchange areas, and in new exchange' areas being set 'Up to meet population growth, reticulation works are going «n. On March 31, 27 new automatic exchanges were being installed. Equipment for a further 80, including 50 rural ones, had been designed and was being manufactured. “The engineering construction branch has again put in a record year’s work in the telephone field,” the report says. “This is reflected in the fact that 36,155 waiting persons were put on the telephone, that 35 new automatic exchanges were brought into service in the year, and that the waiting list was reduced from 54,946 to 43,303. The full effort of the year’s construction is not completely shown in these figures. “There has been a marked demand this year from business organisations for leased teleprinter circuits. A shortage of telegraph circuits and the need first to extend and modernise the department’s public telegraph system prevented the satisfying of this demand earlier. “Most of the private wire services asked for will shortly be available. During the year, a special system of this type was provided between Auckland and Kawerau for the Kawerau paper project. There are now 14 such services on lease, bringing in a revenue of £59,000. There are other organisations seeking this service,” says the report.