TELEPHONE CHARGES

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 57, 8 March 1923, Page 11

TELEPHONE CHARGES

DISSATISFACTION IN THE SOUTH

APPORTIONING INCREASED COSTS,

(lil TELtOti.tfH.—PBSSS ASSOCIATION.) CtraiSTOHURCH, 7th March. The Special Committee of the Canterbury Progress league which considered the Postmaster-General's proposals to increase telephone charges reports that there are considerations discounting the claim of the Department that its telephone branch canriot in future be carried on without loss except with, largely-increased revenue from telephone subscribers. These considerations are; (1) The year of expenditure selected by the Department as a bads for its estimate of loss was that ended 31st March, 1922, a year in which it was shown to us that the cost of- labour was at the peak, as also was the confc of material as charged to the Department; (2) since then-the Department's officers inforni us that the cost of salaries and wages is less than that of the year ended 31st March, 1922, by 10 per cent., and they have shown us that, though somev classes of materials have not yet decreased, yet important classes, such as bronze, wire, and cables, have considerable decreased in cost; (3) the officers of the Department admit that the coming extensive installation of automatic telephones will reduce operating expenses within the next three years, though they are at present unable to say to what extent, but it is obvious that if a change is justified the annual saving funded will pay off the cost of such change. We, therefore, consider, on the information available to .us, that it should be quite practicable for the Department, while paying interest on capital arid, providing against depreciation, to profitably oarry on its telephone business on its revenue based on the already substantially increased charges of the last two years, without asking more from the telephone subscribers as a whole than they at present pay. The second, question addressed by the committee to' itself with reference to the fair apportionment of increased charges between various subscribers needs no answer. As such, as the committee at present considers no increased charges necessary, , but various information has come to the committee which levels it to the conclusion that, without, increasing the total charges to subscribers as a whole, good work may be done by the telephone branch in the ascertaining of some really distinctive classification between business and private telephones; (2) classification of all telephones into a few distinctive grades according to the manifest grade of use; and (3) extension of the flat-rate areas as already proposed by the Department. The method of charging measured rates for telephone service, involving the necessity of keeping account of the number of calls on each telephone throughout the year, has been frequently ' referred to during sittings of the committee on this question. The committee unqualifiedly agrees with the Chief Telegraph Engineer that the advantages of measuring the rates are enormously outweighed by the disadvantage of the heavy additional cost of operating and accounting which they must involve.