SLOT TELEPHONES

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 127, 27 February 1928, Page 8

SLOT TELEPHONES

NEW SYSTEM INTRODUCED USE OF SHOPS IN BUSY STREETS The slot telephones already provided in the city render valuable service, and it is a matter for official regret that owing to the undesirability of encroaching on footpath space, it is not possible to install telephone cabinets in the busier streets of the shopping area. The Post and Telegraph Department, it is stated, believes in a public telephone service everywhere and all the time, and the Postmaster-General announces that as a further step in this direction it has been arranged to supplement the pi esent system with a system of slot telephones in shops.

“The installing of telephones in shops,” the Minister states, “not only will serve to swell the number of public telephones but will enable slot telephone service to be provided in streets where, although urgently needed, it has hitherto not been possible to give it. For instance, in that portion of Willis Street between Manners Street and Lambton Quay, pubic telephone service has been badly needed, but it has not been possible to erect telephone cabinets owing to the undesirability of encroaching upon the footpaths. The need has now been supplied by installing slot telephones in two shops. The telephones will be available to the public during the hours that the shops are open for business. Another telephone will be installed shortly in a shop in Lambton Quay. The presence of the telephones will be indicated by a prominent notice suspended from the shoo verandas.

“The general policy will he as far as possible to install slot telephones in shops which remain open in the evenings; but this will not be rigidly adhered to.

"The system of public telephones in shops is already in operation in tiie United States of America, and gives satisfaction. If results in Wellington justify the step, the system will be extended from time to time both in Wellington and to other centres.”.