AUTOMATIC SUB-EXCHANGE

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 277, 17 August 1921, Page 6

AUTOMATIC SUB-EXCHANGE

AT KELBURN. J There are already two automatic triophone sub-exchanges at work in Wellington—at Courtenay Place and Newtown. A third one in Upland Road, Kelburn, is to be opened this afternoon. This exchange will ultimately have a capacity of 2000 lines, but the Telegraph Department, with the material on hand nnd in sight, proposes to install plant for 800 subscribers. In the immediate future, however, tho exchange will not have a capacity of more than 400 subscribers. The first step to bo carried out to-day is the conversion from manual to automatic telephones of fifty of tho preeent subscribers in the district. It may appear that a more reasonable method ■would be to begin with people who are Waiting for the telephone; but the con- ■ version has a good reason behind it. , Each of tho existing subscribers now uses (and monopolises) a line from Kelburn to the main exchange. These wires will bo used as “trunk" lines between the Kelburn exchange and the central one and each will be available for any subscriber, so that the fifty lines taken over will be sufficient for several times as many new automatic installations. A number of new subscribers in the neighbourhood of tho Kelburn branch are now being provided with instruments which can be used very scon after the changing over of tho old lines to trunk purposes. The installation of additional instruments up to the capacity of the exchange will proceed steadily. Karori and Northland will be served bv tho Kelburn exchange. Ihe cables for the Karori area are now being pin up and the installation of new subscriber* in that area should begin in a week or two. In Northland subscribers will have to wait longer, as the necessary cables are not yet available The telephone, situation in Wellington has eased very much lately. When the Courtenay Place branch was opened there was a "waiting list of almost a thousand. This has now been cut down to below 300, and it should soon become very much smaller.