TELEPHONE SYSTEM

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 148, 25 June 1945, Page 6

TELEPHONE SYSTEM

PRDPOSED EXTENSION

New Zealand telegraph engineers are in the process of investigating sources of stippiy for improved telephone and telegraph communications in the Dominion, and have already visited Sweden, the United States, Australia, and Great Britain to prepare reports from which the Government will decide the type of equipment to be used in the extension of communications in New Zealand, said the Director-General of the Post and Telegraph Department (Mr. H. M. Patrick), today. It is possible that the years following the war will bring the introduction of a uniform automatic • telephone system for the Dominion as a replacement of the three types now iniuse.. Equipment has been ordered, and is. in process of manufacture in Great Britain, for a new telephone system for Lower Hutt, which will provide for 5000 subscribers. It is proposed that a -special mechanician from the Department will leave New Zealand shortly to watch the manufacture and acquaint himself with the technical details, for future instruction of the men who will service it in. New Zealand. At present any extension of the New Zealand service will be made to the main system, but the 'Department envisages the time when a uniform system will be adopted, as. in Britain and Australia, where the step-by-step system is in universal use. For this reason the Department is seeking information on all latest deyelopments. It has been found that in Sweden, which has a high reputation for the manufacture of electrical equipment of many kinds, the latest developments in telephonic communication have brought the system up to a very high standard, said Mr. Patrick, but he emphasised that the extensions of the New Zealand service were in" the investigatory stage only, and that a decision would not be made by the Government until all available data had been collated. Engineers had pointed out that great developments were pending in the future. It might be possible for a man to enter a post office in North Auckland and telephone to Invercargill by the simple process of pressing a certain number of buttons and dialing. He would get in direct touch with the person he wanted without anyone coming between. A card giving the mileage, the name of the person to whom he had made the call, and the cost would be printed automatically by this machine. "We can see the possibilities of that, but at the present time Switzerland is the only country in the world with this system," said Mr. Patrick. •