Free calling area to be extended

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32706, 8 September 1971, Page 15

Free calling area to be extended

The Christchurch telephone free calling area will be further extended later this year by the inclusion of subscribers in the Lincoln, Springston, Rolleston and Greenpark areas. The Regional Engineer (Mr H. W. Wilkinson) said that automatic exchanges were now being completed at Springston, Rolleston and Greenpark to replace the manual exchange, at Lincoln.

A supplementary directory would be issued to subscribers in the areas concerned and to business subscribers in Christchurch to cover the period between the opening of the new exchanges and the issue of a new directory for the metropolitan area. Mr Wilkinson said that this extension to the free calling area would make it 30 miles long from north to south and 23 miles broad from east to west.

The new telephone directory will be issued next April or May. It will include in the main section all free calling areas and will have about 4600 altered telephone numbers. There will be about 2000 changes in the Riccarton district. Subscribers whose numbers now begin with 46 and 47 will have new prefixes 486 and 487. The last three digits of their present numbers will be unchanged. The other 2600 altered numbers will concern several exchanges and will include numbers of some subscribers who have been getting service from exchanges beyond their residential localities.