Little River to have automatic exchange

Press, 4 June 1982, Page 2

Little River to have automatic exchange

Parliamentary reporter

The Little River telephone exchange will be converted to automatic later this year, according to the PostmasterGeneral (Mr Talbot). The new exchange would mean a greatly improved service for subscribers in the Little River area and would provide continuous automatic service with mostly individual connections, said Miss Ruth Richardson, the member for Selwyn. A building to house the new exchange had been constructed in Christchurch and the installation of equipment

bought from overseas would start soon.

When this was completed, about the end of August, the building would be placed on the site at the rear of the

Little River Post Office, on special foundations designed to protect it from flooding, she said.

The new’ exchange was expected to cost $341,000 and would be brought into service in November.

Manual telephones in use now would be replaced with new automatic telephones and STD (subscriber toll dialling) would be introduced so that subscribers could dial their own toll calls to Christchurch and most other places served by automatic exchanges.