TELEPHONE CHARGES

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 301, 14 September 1920, Page 4

TELEPHONE CHARGES

SYSTEM OF ASSESSING BATES,

Tho matter of telephone charges wa3 referred.to at yesterday's meeting of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce, by tho acting-secretary cf the- General Post Office, in response to overtures from the council. In tho course of a letter, tho acting-secretarv stated that the reason tho Department based Iclophone charges on. distance was that the exchange 6ysieins at present iu.'ise jn New Zealand wei'O "singlc-office" systems, which involved the provision of a separate circuit for each subscriber, all tho way from the central (single office) exchange. "The length of the subscriber's circuit," he states, "is therefore a factor ill the capital cost and maintonanco charges. It :s true that in Wellington two auxiliary automatic exchanges aro in operation, but tho provision of additional n.pparatus and 6tafF for inter-connecting between Die old and new systems, neutralises the advantages that l wou'ld otherwise be obtained, but will not be until the whole area is converted to the automatic system." The automatic sys>l;«m, he added, would not lie wiwlly in "ogue in Wellington for three years, and under that systein the. number of calls made by subscribers would bo an important factor in the [assessment of telephono charges.