TELEPHONE TOLL SYSTEM.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1034, 25 January 1911, Page 7

TELEPHONE TOLL SYSTEM.

COMPLAINTS IN AUSTRALIA. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. Melbourne, January 24. . Many largo users .of the telephone are oomplaining of overcharging under the toll system. It is asserted that the overcharge amounts to 50 per cent. Under the Anstraiian-.telephonesjs-tem, subscribers, iustead of paying so much per annum for tho use of an ihshumcnt, are charged for the number of calls they make on the exchange. Tha ''Age,'" writing recently, of the new rates, said "Doubt, need no longer be entertained as to tho effect of tho application of tie toll system to the telephone service. It has resulted in a large decrease in the use'of tho service. This decrease has Leen watched with apprehension by officers since it, became maniiest immediately after the introduction of tho charges on-. iscntou'ibcr 1; but they insisted:that it'was merely a temporary effect, due partly to tho irritation, of the public, and mainly -to pious resolutions to. economise. Thfr. steady maintenance of the decrease, ami t i s o astonishing extent of the faUing-off dunng the busy Christmas seav.'n have forced on officials tho fact that th»y must look deeper for the causes. Oilicialj are,at a less to explain tho j-emarkable falling-off of nearly 50 per cent, duriug December. Tho Christmas trade wns never U-'.ler than, last year, and the number of small wants, so. easily covered.,by a pall,;1iiro«Bli the' telephone, wai never greater, let the 'calls effected drrpjieil, according to the official figures, fi\im 159.348 to 82,048. The only' e.cpinnation ferc-illo is that people burdened thenitdvis and their children with errands rather than go to the expense of teltipuoning. How much business was left undone because of tho'inaccessibility of tf.e telep'jMio taDnot be counted."