TELEPHONE USE

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14066, 13 February 1939, Page 2

TELEPHONE USE

BIG ADVANCE IN NEW ZEA-

LAND,

A RECORD LAST YEAR The telephone system of the Domini >n has expanded so rapidly as to place New z.calandeis nigh up on file list oi tile worid s greatest telepnoiiio users. The past: yeai ended with a total number oi subscriber to exchanges of 155,203, showing a net gain for the twelve months which lia* never previously been exceeded. How the last pace of telephone development has continued since the economic depression is shown by the figures of succeeding years:—

j-nis sunty snows xiiat me number of subscribers liag giown by. 33,710 since the service commenced to again advance after the depression of 1932. There are- other important features in this* development The telephone has long ceased to be an instrument for occasional use. “Telephone convenience’’ lias been studied by New Zealanders, not only by business men who jequire the instrument on their desks, but by private residents who ins'all extension telephones in their rooms instead of confining the handy instrument to the hall. The result has been that there nr eneaily 40,000 telephones supplementing the main exchange connections. The telephone on the street corner is another appreciated facility and there are over a. thousand public call offices throughout the Dominion. New Zealand is the only country in the world in which calls may be made through public coin-in-tlie slot telephones for one pennv. Altogether there are nearly- 198,000 telephones in use. and of These 55 per cent are automatically operated by the subscribers through seventeen, of the iarger exchanges

Decern her 1933: scribers 12i,493 (jr&ill. December 1934: 123,279 1,786 December 1935 : 127,864 4,53-5 December 1936: 136,029 8.1 Go December 1937 : 145,407 9,.‘378 December 1938. 155,203 9,796 This sur vcy sho vvs that the num-