EMPIRE WIRELESS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18899, 27 June 1923, Page 4

EMPIRE WIRELESS.

DELAY TO PRIVATE ENTERPRISE.

CONFERENCES PROCEEDING. IFaou Odb Own Coreespondent.) LONDON. May 18. Over two months ago Air Bonar Law announced to the House of Commons a new policy with regard to Empire wireless, Private enterprise was to be _ free to get on with the work of equipping the Empire with a service adequate to the world’s needs. Difficulties seem to have been in the way of immediate progress. Conferences, however, are now taking place between the Postmaster-General and representatives of the Marconi Company, as a result of which a solution may scon bo found of the difficulties. Soon after the Prime Minister had made his announcement Sir W. Joynson-Hicks began to confer with the Marconi Company on the possibility of setting up a scheme in which private and State enterprise could cooperate. The view of the Post Office is that it should be possible in this matter to divide the Empire wireless chain between that department and private enterprise, and it is hoped that a solution on these lines will soon be arrived at.

Mr Godfrey Isaacs, the managing director of the’Marconi Compan- has given a summary of the contentions of his company on the subject. Ho said that there were only three possible ways of conducting the wireless services of This country. ’Jhese were;.—(l) A joint control of the allocation of traffic over all stations indiscriminately. whether Government or privately owned, with one transmitting centre: (2' the regional division of traffics, which meant an exclusive allocation of particular countries to particular stations; or (3) free competition between the different enterprises over, the whole world _ He put forward those contentions, in his. recent address to the industrial group of the House of Commons. The speech was private and has not yet been published, but within a few days it is to be issued to all members of Parliament. In the course of it he went on to examine these three courses more fully. QUESTION ; OF CONTROL.

Tile first, he said, would have the advantage of using the capacity of each of the stations to its fullest extent, enabling several stations to concentrate on the traffics destined to any part of the world during the peak load hours. It would be borne in mind that each of the stations erected in the dominions would have four receiving stations, so that at busy times of the day an accumulation. of traffic would not be created. There would be facilities for every message being immediately despatched, arriving the same day and enabling a reply to be received the following morning. With regard to the regional division of countries lot it be supposed that a single station in this country were allocated to the traffic of India. If that traffic were heavy, as it usually was between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m., and the atmospheric conditions in India, were excellent for two hours of the period and unsatisfactory for the remainder, all the traffic’ that could not be transmitted during the good period would have to stand over until conditions improved. Elasticity, one of the greatest advantages of wireless electricity, would he lost from the moment this practice was adopted. In this way it would be reduced to the disability of the cable, which had but two ends, and therefore could communicate only between two points. FREE COMPETITION. The ' third possibility would entail the handicap on private enterprise of free competition between all who conducted wireless services from this country to all parts of the world. It would entail, too, the handicap on private enterprise of competition with a State-subsidised service. This, although very undesirable, would, he thought, be preferable to the many disadvantages of tno regional division. Until these questions were decided the development of this country’s wireless telegraph services was paralysed. They were asking, said Mr Isaacs, to be given a free hand in the development of the telegraph services, thinking that it would make for efficiency if there were one central control of the allocation of traffics. Should this be unacceptable, they still asked for a free hand to develop their own services. They did not, however, ask for any exclusive right. They only asked for that which had been given freely to the cable companies. The conception in most minds of an Empire wireless service had been limited .to . the thought of facilities for communication between the Mother Country and each of the dominions. The Marconi Company conceived a greater service and wore designing the whole of their stations in the dominions to provide, not only a service between the dominions and the Mother Country, but between dominion and dominion and ‘between each dominion and other parts of the world.