TRANSMISSION RIVALRY

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 14 January 1928, Page 5

TRANSMISSION RIVALRY

ADVANTAGES OF COMPETITION

MEAN REDUCTION IN RATES

PUBLIC WOULD BENEFIT

BY CARLE-PRESS association—copyright.

Received 9.35 a.m. to-day. LONDON, Jan. 13. Sir Charles Bright, a consulting engineer, who has been engaged on a number of cable-laying expeditions, and who reported to the Colonial Office qn the Pacific cable scheme in 1897, in an article in the “Evening Standard,” likens the cable scare of the beam wireless competition to gas shareholders when the electric supply was initiated He points out that the governments in the early days heavily -subsidised the cable companies. . For instance, Australia paid the Eastern £32,400 per annum from 1879 to 1899: Surely it was partly with an eye on future competition that the cable companies have built up large reserves. Experience has shown that cable company amalgamations and working agreements have not been advantageous to the public, tending to keep up rates. What is needed, especially from the inter-imperial trade standpoint, is more British cables offering alternative routes, and more wireless stations actually competing with cables. Thus we should secure a reduction in rates, long needed in the interests of the public, and a more effective press service between the Mother Country and the Dominions.

LONDON, Jan. 12. A. writer in the “Financial Times” hints that a possible solution of the cable and wireless rivalry is the formation of a company covering wireless and cable interests. He suggests that if the two systems were under one direction either could he used, so that traffic could he directed in the quickest and most economical' way, while the saving in working costs might be £1.000,000 annually.