THE TELEPHONE.

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, Issue 18084, 13 June 1924, Page 8

THE TELEPHONE.

SUGGESTION FOR SAVING TIME

Mr E. A. Shrimpton, Chief Engineer, in his report on the telephone matters in the Canterbuij- uis-u-ict, says, inter alia : matter which concerns moie Particular I v the business community, ami which would be of great assistance to subscribers generally, is the a dopt on by the public ot a standard method of answering the telephone The ;x----pressions used by. the telephon P lie when answering the telephone aic •is numerous almost as the users t-hvi.i----seives. These varied expressions may bo contrasted with the method of answering adopted by tho Chustchiuv i Tramway Board and a few other business people. A ring on the liarnwav Boards number is invariably answered immediately with the expression iramwav.’ The result is a saving of time both to the called and calling . übscriber, and also a reduction oi the time during which the telephone exchange apparatus is in use. “This might appear to be a small matter, but in the telephone business the ‘second of time is one of the allimportant units. An appreciable improvement in the telephone service could be. effected if the public would studv and make .general uso of the matters covered under the heading of ‘courtesies,” and published on one of the coloured pages in every telephone directory. ' . . “A complication introduced into an exchange having a mixed system n> caused by subscribers neglecting to ling off. * This is particularly important where a manual subscriber is connected with an automatic subscriber. This source of trouble would be removed if every manual subscriber, whether ]ie calls or is called, would rim l, oil uipon completion of a conversation. The automatic subscriber has no means of ringing off, and it is therefore essential that the manual subscriber should do so in order to make both lines free for the next call as quickly as possible.”