Time Service.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20541, 16 February 1935, Page 10

Time Service.

Dear Sir, —I noticed in your paper this week a reference to the discontinued time service formerly given by the Post and Telegraph Department. Mr G. M’Namara states that this service is given in other countries but at a cost of perhaps lid per call from the house, and he adds that he would be glad to give the service at lid per call. I would be very glad if he did give this service, but I and hundreds of others would be far greater pleased if he made all calls from the house lid each and allowed us to each pay a nominal rental, or even to buy our own telephone. I fail utterly to see why a person like myself who makes perhaps on an average two or three outward calls per day should pay exactly the same for the service as one of the large city firms which perhaps makes two or three hundred calls per day. Anybody can use a public telephone box at Id per call and I think the extra id would pay for the convenience of being able to receive inward calls. I feel certain many more telephones would be used by smaller business people, and I know that I myself would willingly pay 3d per call, if I knew that other people were paying the same. Why should we small business people have to pay for the telephone calls made by the large firms? It seems to me as if the “ Little Fellow ” gets the dirty end of the stick all the time. It would be interesting to get some idea of the number of calls made by a large firm and give a comparison in costs say, against a man using a telephone say three times per day. I reckon that at present a man making 3 calls per day pays 3d per call, while a man making 100 calls per day gets over 10 calls for Id.—l am, etc., TELEBUNKUM.