New Cables—Yes: Phones—Maybe

Chronicle (Levin), 3 June 1949, Page 4

New Cables—Yes: Phones—Maybe

The Rost and Telegraph Departmerif's cabje foiners, who have for the "past sfx "months. been layirig ahd Jqining undergrounfi teienhone bab.es throughout the b§roygh and 4" large par& of the 4isfrict, 'have now completed . the *major work ' and in' mahy'areasYhe new cables are nqw "in qperatipp. There is still kf* last another three months' work in'fhe cbnnecting*"up of additibnal 'cables and the lengthening of the service to Ohau, Heatherlea -East Road .cprner anfi other parts. The" repl'acement bf the overhead caple with qndefgrqund. up tp the Shannon Road corner has also to be under taken. I The mjifi in eharge of operations, Mr. "C. J. Warn/sai'd that the overhead cables were now being cut ai^d removed. Sqrne them had beven ih service 'for 20 years. The taking of a!l "ihe cables undergroun'd gave' them greater protection and lessened the maintbnance 1 worries "

What of the pro^pects of wouldbe subkcribers ' bejng linkea up speefii-y to Ihe new cables That was a'questioh which was put to a post offiee offlcial this morning. He said that the position in-regaid to new t.elephone conriections was brighter, but the laying of the pable, which he s'tresse^ was not complete'id yet, would not answer all fhe problems. Labouf ahd materi^ls were still a headache to the department, ahd by materials he di'd not mean the actual. telephqnes alpne. These were coming ih now in small though steady consignments, but pther vital equipment* was still hard to get and then there was the question of the already overburdened staff findmg time to complete the linkipg ug-r-hot only in Levin, but ih the other towns in the area*.' Levin- staff covered towns from Foxton and Shannon down to Paraparaumu and Paekakariki. All those "towns were wahtihg additional te ephones, besides the normal service work. Levin, in many respects, was better off than others. To a "Chronicle" reporter, he shqwed a series of bplky files containing work sheets for the whoie district — all awaiting attention. If the staff stopped all other 'work and concentrated on thosp files, it would still take them many months to catch up. Work on supp ying n,ew resi'dential teleohone instalments was, however, going ony but to indicate the leeway that had still to be caught up with he said that last we.ek telephone ' applications were fulfilled which had been outstanding since 1946. Another patch WouM be attended to next week. The position, hpweye.r, was being closely wafched apd every endeavpur made to satisfy demands for residential nhones.. He could say that the* position at least was brighter.