Telephone shortage a ‘crisis soon’

Press, 12 April 1978, Page 4

Telephone shortage a ‘crisis soon’

New telephoe connections will be unavailable in Christchurch within nine years if "unorthodox measures” are not used. This is an official Post Office prediction based on the latest estimate of subscriber demand, according to Mr D. M. McFarlane, who has just retired as regional engineer. Mr McFarlane has left the Post Office after more than 40 years after joining if as a cadet. As regional engineer,' he was loosely responsible for telecommunications throughout the South Island, except for Marlborough, and directly responsible for Christchurch. It had been estimated that the Christchurch central telephone exchange would be at ull capacity by 1987 at the latest, said Mr McFarlane. This took into account the recent downturn in demand for new connections. If demand picked up again in the next nine years “Christchurch is really in big trouble.’” A new central telephone exchange had to be working by the mid-1980s. The need for a new exchange was greater than the need for a new central post office. Even if approval was given for construction now, by the time plans were drawn up, tenders called, and the big task of building completed, it coujd be past the deadline. There will be other difficulties. The existing central exchange occupied three floors of the Post Office Savings Bank building in Hereford Street.

A> new exchange would have to have at least 14,000 sq. m of floor space and be very close to the present exchange. The further removed the new building was from Hereford Street, the higher would become the cost of relaying the many cables leading to the present building.

However, there was some hope of bridging the gap “but we are going to have to adopt some unorthodox measures and these are going to be expensive.” ■ Mr McFarlane was reluctant to describe how the problem could be overcome. “It will not affect the man in the street because he will still get service,” he said. “But it is going to cost the Post Office money — big money." Mr McFarlane said that there was already a waiting list of 4000 potential subscribers in Christchurch. It had taken much effort to persuade the Government to treat Christchurch as a special case: the most critical area in New Zealand apart from Auckland. Of other developments, Mr McFarlane said that telecommunications in New Zealand were on the threshhold of an immense breakthrough. “Frankly, it scares me,” Between World War II and 1974, telephone equipment throughout New Zealand had been standardised to conform with British Post Office specifications. Then, the first cross-bar equipment had been installed in an ex-

change. This was Japanesebuilt and had been a great improvement on the old British step-by-step equipment. Now the Post Office was studying new equipment that could revolutionise telephone communications within New Zealand. Electronics companies from several countries were attempting to interest New Zealand in computerbased equipment known as stored-programme control. There were virtually no limits to the versatility of this equipment. Other improvements In technology were also near. Within two years, the Post Office would have introduced a national paging system working on the same principle as the “beepers” that doctors carried in a busy hospital so that they could be signalled to contact their office. For example, if a businessman was in Bluff, his secretary in Auckland could dial a telephone number which was the code which would “beep” the paging device he carried. She would precede the number by the S.T.D. code for Bluff and the businessman’s "beeper” would signal him to telephone his Auckland office. Mr McFarlane joined the Post Office in 1938 after gaining a master of science degree. He served in Hamilton and Whangarei after returning from World War 11, during which he was taken prisoner in the Middle East. In 1960, he became one of the Post Office’s divisional engineers in Christchurch. He became regional engineer in 1974.