TELEPHONE EXCHANGES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26416, 21 March 1947, Page 6

TELEPHONE EXCHANGES

ADDITIONAL SYSTEMS IN OPERATION IN JUNE “ The new telephone exchanges which are to be established at Anderson’s Bay and North-East Valley will be ready for service in June, and that at Green Island about the end of the year,” said the Postmaster-general, Mr Hackett, in a statement to the Daily Times yesterday. He added that extensions were also to be made to the Dunedin Central, Roslyn and South Dunedin exchanges to meet growing requirements. At the moment,, over 2000 persons in Dunedin were waiting for telephone installations. No Immediate Results Mr Hackett said that at the outset, the North-East Valley exchange would be manually operated. It was hoped that automatic switching equipment would be available in a few years’ time. He emphasised that it was not to be expected that all the waiting applicants would be satisfied immediately the new exchanges were brought into service, but the work of joining up new connections will be undertaken progressively as labour and material became available. Coincident with the work of installing the new exchanges, extensive underground cabling works were being undertaken in Dunedin with the object of making additional circuits available for connecting new subscribers. “The requirements of the country districts have not been overlooked,” Mr Hackett said. “At practically all of the larger centres throughout Otago post offices are faced with ever-increas-ing demands for telephone service. In many of these places major additions to cable and line plant are required to enable the demands to be met. The towns for which telephone circuit extensions have already been approved are Alexandra, Balclutha, Cromwell, Kaitangata, Milton, Mosgiel, Palmerston, Port Chalmers and Waikouaiti.” Better Toll Service Greatly improved toll service had recently been provided between Dunedin 1 and the Central Otago area, he continued. For instance, additional circuits from Dunedin to Alexandra, Cromwell and Middlemarch were brought into service in December last. New circuits were more recently provided between Cromwell and Wanaka, and Cromwell and Arrowtown. It was also proposed to provide a new circuit between Dunedin and Gore which, in turn, would make it possible to make improvement in communications between Gore and Balclutha, and between Balclutha and Dunedin. Other minor improvements were also planned.