TALKING TO NEW YORK

Evening Star, Issue 19444, 30 December 1926, Page 5

TALKING TO NEW YORK

WIRELESS TELEPHONE SERVICE

BRITISH POST OFFICE PLAN,

Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright.

LONDON, December 28

The General Post Office announces that it is hoped to inaugurate a public wireless telephone service with the New York exchange early in January. A caller will be able to use a private telephone in-the ordinary way, giving the American exchange and the number, and also tho name of .tho person to whom it is desired to speak. If a connection is made with the desired person the charge will bo £ls for three minutes and £5 for each extra minute, and if tho desired person is not available the caller can converse with an alternative person at the £ls rats.' If he declines to do this ho will pay £2 for the connection with the- desired number, but if he is not connected therewith _ ho_ will pay _ nothing. If atmospherics interfere with a conversation an allowance will be made. The Post Office says that the measures taken to cope with fading and atmospherics represent the results of three years’ research experiments, giving a clarity of reception which was not imagined to be possible even so lately as 1923. Voices at each end automatically control tho switches, enabling a conversation to be carried on as on ordinary land lines.

A caller in London gets the trunk exchange, where lie is connected with Rugby, and _ thence by wireless with Honlton (Maine), thence over 500 miles of land lino to the Now York longdistance exchange, where ho is connected with the local exchange and the number of the desired person, whoso reply comes via Long Island to Wroughton, near Swindon, thence to London and the caller. The Post Office considers that £l6 is a reasonable charge, seeing that the Rugby wireless station cost £500,000.