TELEPHONE TOLL CALLS

Evening Star, Issue 22895, 1 March 1938, Page 7

TELEPHONE TOLL CALLS

OVER A MILLION MONTHLY ■ To handle well over a million toll calls every month is now a commonplace in connection with the Dominion’s telephone system. This means of quick communication is becoming more and more popular, judging by the regularity with which the million mark has been passed each month since November, 1935, when a total of 967,365 calls grew to 1,099.902 in the following month. As the use of the toll lines gives a fair index to activity in the commercial world, a comparison of the past six months’ figures with the corresponding month of the previous year affords evi-

dence of increasingly prosperous conditions. The details of monthly toll calls for 1937 are as follow (the figures for 1936 being given in parentheses) : July, 1,143,548 (1,012,994); August, 1,148,422 ' (1,035,022); September 1,111,460 (1,012,163); October, 1,180,638 (1,096,838); November, 1,209,546 (1,079,157); December, 1,341,514 (1,245,030). The average expenditure per toll conversation works out at 10.3 d, a figure which has been steadily rising from year to year as the department’s improved facilities have enabled the range of long-distance communication to be extended, until the whole of New Zealand is included within the scope of the telephone toll network, while the overseas radio telephone service makes its scope international.