CALLS BY CABLE

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 103, 1 May 1926, Page 8

CALLS BY CABLE

TRANS-STRAIT COMMUNICATION

INCREASING USE OF NEW FACILITY

Increasing use is being made of the telephone cable across Cook Strait which was laid recently and has provided a new communication facility for about a month past. The average number of calls being made daily from Wellington to Blenheim and Nelson and district is between thirty and thirtyfive, and it is expected that the patronage will increase considerably when the existence of the new service becomes better known, and when the facility is extended to centres north of Auckland and in other parts of the South Island. Pending completion of a section of cable line at the other side of the Strait, people north of Wellington are unable to make use of the new cable yet, but this work should be finished in a few months, when communication will be possible between any centre in the North Island with any centre in tho South Island. FURTHER IMPROVEMENTS LATER. Although the new convenience has been in existence for several weeks, there still appear to be many people, including business men who might frequently benefit by the service, who are unaware of it. Marlborough and Nelson business men who previously have stressed their comparative isolation are very appreciative of the new connection with Wellington. Inter-Island communication, as tested by a "Post" reporter this morning, is fairly quickly effected through "tolls," and conversation was carried on as easily as between two offices in the city. The service at present is an improvised one, and although speech is satisfactory, it 'is stated that conditions will be very greatly improved when the new ampli- ! fying and repeating apparatus is in- | stalled at the terminal points of the cable. Ample circuits are available to ! give a quick service. CHARGES FOR CONNECTION. Although the cost of the new cable is very heavy, it has been decided, to make the same charges for communications over it as are now made for calls over land lines. Thus communication with the South Island will be no more costly to the subscriber than connection with a station at the same distance away in the North Island. Charges for a. three-minute conversation for a Wellington subscriber are lOd to Seddon, Is 2d to Blenheim, Is 6d to Picton, and 2s 5d to Nelson. From 9. p.m. to 8 a.m. the above rates are reduced by half, and between midnight and 6 a.m. the half-rate covers a sixminute instead of a three-minute conversation. Urgent calls may be made at double the ordinary day rates.