TELEPHONE EXTENSION.

Otago Witness, Issue 3769, 8 June 1926, Page 7

TELEPHONE EXTENSION.

EXPENDITURE CONTEMPLATED. £750.000 FROM RECENT LOAN. WELLINGTON, June 2. Seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds in the recently floated Government loan is marked for “telegraph extension, but it will be used mainly for expenditure on the telephone systems. Telephone and telegraph expenditures are grouped together, but actually about 90 to 95 per cent, of the money will be absorbed *in extending the telephonic service. As, to 3*ll intents and purposes, the actual work of running wires to different parts of the country for purely telegraph purposes is complete, the Post and Telegraph Department is working to a definite annual programme of telephone extension, and is concentrating on completing the more import? ant works first. Wellington and Auckland have now been converted to the automatic telephono system, and it is expected that it will bo feasible to switch over completely to the automatic system in Dunedin in about six months. Automatic telephones are also being installed in Christchurch. There ia a good deal of underground cable work to be done and it cannot be definitely stated how soon it will be possible to complete the change over. Fair use is being made of the recently laid Cook Strait cable which affords telephonic facilities between Wellington and Marlborough and Nelson, and it is hoped that business firms will make increasing use of this service which is now being extended to meet the needs of people in districts aa far from Wellington as Palmerston North. Later on it will be possible to communicate between any part of the North Island and the South Island and very shortly a commencement will be made with the line between Blenheim and Christchurch—important link in the extended aystenw.