Games telephones "will be ready’

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33434, 16 January 1974, Page 14

Games telephones "will be ready’

The Post Office is sure it will have communications for the Commonwealth Games running smoothly even though a lot of work cannot be done until the last minute.

The Regional Engineer (Mr D. M. Davies) said that 80 men were still working fulltime on Games telephone installations. At several venues technicians could do nothing yet because the temporary seating whsre telephones would be located had not been set up. Mr Davies agreed that the provision of private service in Christchurch had had to take second place to Games requirements even though 20 men had been brought into the city from elsewhere for two months before Christmas. Supplying telephone services to new commercial buildings. notably large hotels, and meeting many demands from foreign news services for private lines had kent up the pressure. Nonetheless, the exchanges at the Games village and the main stadium were in full working order in spite of some teething problems. The Post Office had been forced to leave the testing of equipment to users rather than do the usual full-scale tests before use. Two special switchboards

at the central exchange are handling Games traffic. One switchboard takes all calls from the public and feeds them into the Games network. The second switchboard copes will all calls within the Games network—between the venues, the village andheadquarters.