WORLD FIGURES

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 156, 30 December 1925, Page 5

WORLD FIGURES

TELEPHONE SYSTEMS

NEW ZEALAND'S FAVOURABLE POSITION.

How favourably the telephone service in New' Zealand compaies with the systems in operation in other countries is shown by illuminating world figures published recently in "Electrical Communication," a technical publication devoted to telephone and telegraph development. The figures are compiled up to the beginning of this year, and show that hi point of number of telephones per head of. population New ; Zealand occupies fourth place in the world. The development of tho system in the Dominion in the last twelve months will probably place New Zealand in a still more favourable position at the present time.

■ New Zealand possesses a very small percentage of the total telephones of the world, actually only .45 percent.; the United States has 62.54 per cent., Germany 9.42 per cent., Great Britain and Ireland 4.67, Canada 4.11 per cent., and other countries lesser numbers, but the distribution in New Zealand is,far wider and more even than it is in many countries where the telephone is installed in several million homes and places of business. In the United States 13.7 people in every hundred of the population enjoy the convenience of telephone connection, and Canada follows this world's* record closely with 11 per hundred. Denmark comes next with 8.7, and New Zealand fourth with 8.3 telephones per hundred of population. In Germany, the people are not so widely served, the computation being 3.8 telephones per .hundred people. In Great Britain , and Ireland' the figure is still : lower, 2.5. It is also interesting to note : that while. Australia has more than twice as many telephones as New: Zealand, the mass of the people are not served so generally as in this country, the number of subscribers -per hundred of population being .5, giving her seventh pljice.in the.world. The num ber of miles of telephone wire per 100 in various countries is shewn for purposes of comparison as follows: United States 37, Canada 28, New Zealand 22.2, Denmark 20.5, Ha wait 19.9, Australia 19.6, Sweden 14.7, Norway 14.1, Germany 10.8, Great Britain and Ireland 9.9. '[■ '■'

Wellington holds the New (Zealand record so far as telephones;per hundred of population are concerned.. The figures for the three principal centres of"the Dominion are as follows: — Est. Pop'n. of , Exchange Number of 'Phone;

"City. Are«. • 'Phones, per 100. Auckland ... 113,000 11,696 8.8 Wellington. . 115,000 12,751 11.1 Chrlstchurch. 115,000 9,238 . 8.0 These figures are. compiled according to returns furnished up to January, 1925. In San, Francisco nearly, onethird of Jhe pepole enjtfjr the use of direct telephones; the number of instruments in use par hundred of population being 28.8. Other interesting figures are those relating •to Omaha (28.3), Minneapolis (24.8), Stockholm, (24,6), Washington (24.1), Phicago: (23.8),, New .York (19.9), Sydney (7.5)', Berlin (9.8), London (5.4). \ A table illustrating the development of the telephone in large and small communities iu > various couutrics, \piractically Betting town usage against country usage, reveals New Zealand in a conspicuous position because of the very even distribution of telephones between the areas of large and thin population. In New Zealand 33.685 telephones are shown as operating in communities of 100,000 population and over, and 77,756 in communities of less population. than 100,000. This works out at 8.4 and 8.2 respectively per 100 of population in the two areas, and no other country in the world is able to show anything like so even a comparison. The nearest is. the United States—lß.2 as against 11.5. . ■ ■_. ■