TELEPHONE SITUATION

Grey River Argus, 25 August 1945, Page 8

TELEPHONE SITUATION

SHORTAGE OF MATERIALS WELLINGTON, August 24. The Acting-Postmaster-General (Mr. Jones | said that there was little immediate prospect of connecting any of the large number of waiting applicants, although the supply of material for telephone connections had been slightly eased. Not only was there insufficient material for carrying out line construction work, but many months of restration work, following the recent severe storms in the Canterbury district, would absorb many linesmen., iA-lthough priority would b.e given' those whose business was high uo in the order of essentiality, even these could not be given service in certain towns. A more serious problem, particularly in larger towns, was the lack of switching Equipment. Automatic exchanges in the four centres, Hamilton, Palrnerston North and elsewhere, were loaded almost to the maximum capacity. The Minister said that to ensure a more equitable rationing of new connections it had been decided that until normal conditions returned, a residential subscriber moving away from an address would not be permitted to transfer his telephone to the incoming tenant or anyone else. Instead, the relinqquished connections would be allocated to the next most deserving applicant on the waiting list, but there would not be a restriction on the transfer of a business telephone from one businessman to another, nor on a person moving to a new adress in the same city taking his telephone connection with him.