A MILLION 'PHONES

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 35, 10 August 1921, Page 13

A MILLION 'PHONES

NEW YORK'S COMPLEMENT»

ONE.A MINUTE.

It ie probable that nothing in New York City has grown as rapidly or as 'in the last year as the telephone system (says the N«w York Timee). In the past fifteen months, the company has expanded its plant in the city to such an extent that the growth alone is equivalent to a telephone system capable of serving almost any one of the first-rank cities of the United States.

Here is what has been accomplished': 154,000 new telephones have been installed ; half a million miles of telephone wi.ro ha-- 3 been added to the system; six hundred and twenty new switchboard operating positions have been put in service; five new central office buildings have been constructed and additions have been made to seventeen other buildings, affording 12.6 more acres of floor space. . In money all this represents van investment of more thoa £7,000,000, threo j times the amount of money spent in the city by the telephone company in any normal year before the war. :■ MILLION STATIONS SOON. Probably there is no such thing a* a limitation on the growth of a telephone (system. The million mark in. New York telephone stations is expected to be reached and possibly, passed before 1921 ends. New York now has more telephones than all the capitals of Europe and, Asia combined. The total number of stations is nearly 1 935,000. In recent weeks the telephone man has been connecting new instruments at the rate of one every minute for the eight hours of the working day. There is. perhaps, only a single place in New York; where one can visualise the continual stream of : nw telephones pouring into servireX That place is an interesting workshop, where, by a conveyor device, the paper equivalent of new telephone instruments can be seen travelling through -the recording routine as fast and as soon as iiew telephones are connected. ■ A stubby wooden chute, polished by constant usage, empties into a belt conveyor running a course of fifty feet between two rows of clerks. Down this chute and along the conveyor go black canvas envelopes to be picked up by waiting clerks. , The clerks along the belt are connected by telephone with a number of the force of 1 700 instrument j installers who are at work in all parts < of Manhattan and the Bronx. When an installer puts a new telephone in service, he reports by telephone to the clerk beside the conveyor, and she telephones to a "despatcher's office"—another force of clerks—to' send down the conveyor the canvas envelope in which that' particular installer's work is assorted and routed for him. The company's order for the job he has !just completed is removed from the envelope, O.K.'d by the clerk and sent down the conveyorsto the wire chief, who, within a few minutes, officially puts the new telephone line in service, Thus within a half an hour after an instrument has been connected with the central office switchboard it is ready, to be usei by the subscriber: For the' 154,000 new telephones it was necessary, bf course, to build and • install new switchboard positions. Six hundred and twenty of. these positions havo been put into service in the 101 central offices of the city since January, 1920. , Perhaps, these figures could tell their story better, if there was a comparison between the year just passed and 1914—tho most recent "normal" year in the telephone, business. During tlft twelve months that saw the 'beginning of the European war, the New York Telephone Company spent "£l,----400.000 for gross additions to its plant in the city. In 1920 it spent more than £5,200,000. This year it is working on a programme that calls for'the expenditure of £7,000,000.' On Ist January, 1915, there were 1,650,000 miles of "outside" wire in the city's telephone system. That figure does not include inside wires and the thousands of miles of conductors that run through central office switchboards. To-day there are more than 3,300,000 miles of "outside" wire beneath the city's streets, 1 and with the "inside' wire the total mileage is far above the 5,500,000 mile niark.' At the end of 1914 therei were 562,561 telephone stations in the greater city; there now, are nearly 935,000. Seven years ago there were seventy-one . central office exchanges ; now there are 101. I The telephone system in the city has I virtually been doubled in the eight years, although most of the growth, can be attributed to 1920-1921. One year ago about 3,600,900 telephone calls were made each c&yj to-day the.number lias jumpod to 4,250,000 calls every twentyfour hours. The peak of this traffic load comes between the hours of 10 and 11 o'clock in the morning, when it sesms that all New Y«rk flocks to the telephone. Qoring <3i© hour a daily average of more than 500,M)0 telephone calls are made, and this means tfiat a million.persons talk over the telephone in that one period. ; './ It is pointed out by, J. S. JH'Oulloh, vice-president of the company, that u«vca January, 1920, the > company has beer, through several stages of ups and downs /in securing a sufficient number of proficient telephone operators. The ' war had taught business and industry the value of highclass feminine workers, and aonsequently the company) experienced' much difficulty vc. getting girls capable of serving the public properly: "Not wvery girl caro "be a telephone operator," Mr. M'Oulloh said the pthp" day. The girls selected for training must meet certain educational requirements ; they must have a certain awn reach ; and their voices must be susceptible to the cultivation and training which produces that clear enunciation and inflection.so marked in the voices of telephone operators. Such training'" is vitally important, because every, d!ay telephone numbers.are spoken Io.OOOjpOO time* by operators and subscribers "in New York City. Clear enunciation is, we all know, one of the greatest factors in successful telephone talk. 'la February. 1920, our operating force in New York City numbered' slightly more than 11,000, but at preeen* we Have about 16,000 in service. Our campaign for operators last year brought us nearly 60,000 applicants foi positions;. Of this number 16,538 were accepted! for training schools, but nearly 4000 of them were dropped, or resifrned during thai training process. Twelve thousand' five hundred were graduat-edi; and yet, with our great need for 'proficient operators., not half this niimWr ever reached' tliei front-line switchboards. 1'

Another phose of the expansion of the system is the real estate and building devlopment. I|i the pust year this has run 4 into the millions of dollars-, and the inc-easc in' floor area since January, 1921, has bßen moro tlinu twelve j^res. I'he building plans for the .current year prowda an expenditure of about £1,400.----000 for uew tieniral pftioc buildings and additions to buildings. Tlie nomp^ny' now owns sixt,y-(ivo buildings in the city and rents thirty-four. Telephone men will tell you t.h«,t tlie construction and installation work i» only cart of their task. One of the Ug difficulties these days is getting Ult-

phone apparatus and equipment. A cataloguing of the origin of the raw materials which go into the equipment seems almost like a set of answers to tha famous Edison questionnaire. Rubber comes from Brazil. Tho mines of Missouri yield their lead and those ai Nevada give forth their copper. Shellac comes from the fig trees of India, and antimony from the Straits^ Settlements. Pittsburg gives steel. China and Japan sends silk. The forests of the world contribtue their timber. Junk rope, which has served its usefulness on vessels sailing the seven seas, finds its last haven in'machines which turn out a special quality of paper used for insulating the tiny copper wires in telephone cables. Even bees are on the telephone company's pay-roll,' for they furnish the' wax which is boiled to a liquid and then applied to the minute soldered connections in a switchboard, to act as insulation and to keep out moisture. A major switchboard is capable o? serving 10,500 telephone lines from ona. location at one time. It takes 200 operators to "man" it. Such a switchboard contains more than a million working parts and more than 300 types of equipment. Twenty-five thousand miles of wire run through it, and on its facade •re 15,000 tiny electric lights, which flash on and off as telephone users signal the operators to give a number, >to recall the operator or to show that they are through talking. In the inner workings of this complex piece of machinery •re 2,000,000 soldered connections of copper wire—all made by hand.