TALKING ACROSS EUROPE

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 120, 6 February 1923, Page 7

TALKING ACROSS EUROPE

— INTERNATIONAL TELEPHONE PLAN'S. M. Paul Lalfont, the French Minister of Posts, Telegraphs, and Telephones. proposes shortly to.invite to a conference at Paris the technical administrator of the telephone systems of the Western European countries and of the Mediterranean seaboard, with a view to establishing on a commercial basis a. juristical system of long-distance telephoning on tho inrerimtiona'. trunk lines (stakes it'ho London “Times” Paris correspondent).

' This international technical committee, he proposes, shall include representatives from England, Belgium, Holland. France, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, Tripoli, and Egypt-. M. LatTont urges that France, by her geographical position, would naturally b'Miamc the :key*>tione of the vast telephone! system which would be formed by combining the systems of these countries. If France does nob not bTcomci the iiiteavned.ihry, Germany, it is feared, will try to take her place. In outlining this plan he calls attention to the siieccli mjide by Mr. Gill, president of the Society of Electrical Engineers, at a meeting of the society ■ recently held in London, in which the long-distance teioplmne calls constantly used in the United States were mentioned as a striking example of what is possible as a regular, and practical system. Thus the New YorkSan Francisco call (three thousand miles) is equivalent tc communication between London and Bagdad: this Kev West (Florida) and Los Angeles call, via New York and San Francisco, is equivalent to a London-Delhi communication.