AUTOMATIC 'PHONES

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 129, 27 November 1929, Page 12

AUTOMATIC 'PHONES

NEW ZEALAND'S LEAD

AN INTERESTING INTERVIEW

PROGRESS IN BRITAIN

"New Zealand leads the world in regard to the proportion of automatic telephone exchanges installed, " stated Sir William Noble, a director of the British Electric Company, in the course of an interview with an "Evening Post" reporter to-day. Sir "William, who was Engineer-in-Chief to the British Post Office, having retired from that Department in May, 1922, arrived in Wellington from Napier last night. He has come to this side of the world with the object of visiting his company's branches in Australia and New Zealand, having timed Ms arrival in Australia to enable him to attend at Hobart some weeks ago the opening of the first automatic telephone exchange in Tasmania. He last visited New Zealand some three years ago. Sir William spoke interestingly on the expansion of the automatic telephone system in Britain and other countries. WHAT ENGLAND IS DOING. "In England up to about 1924," he stated, "they were experimenting with different systems of automatic telephone installations; and after some years' trial of several systems, the British Post Office decided to install one system only—the Strowger—and is now forging ahead rapidly with the installation of that system throughout the country. Several 10,000-line exchanges have already been erected in London; but the total required for the London area will be in the neighbourhood of 72. The work will proceed continuously until the full number is completed, and it is estimated that that will take from ten to twelve years. In the meantime, smaller exchanges are being installed throughout the British Isles. The city of Leeds was one of the first to install an automatic telephone system, the work being completed during the war. Automatic equipments have been provided since then in a large number of towns and cities, including" Edinburgh, Portsmouth, Brighton, and Hanley (Staffordshire) The Birmingham installation is now in hand, orders having been placed for the three or four 10,000-line exchanges needed in that area. Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, and <$her large cities will each require several such exchanges, and the work of erecting them will be overtaken as soon as possible. The time for installing them is governed in each case by a number of factors, one of which is the age of existing central-battery manual equipments, which, of course, will not be scrapped until they are nearing the end of their period of usefulness. VILLAGE AUTOMATIC EXCHANGES. "It will, therefore, be some years before the British Isles are anything like completely equipped with the automatic telephones. Of course, the smaller places will still employ the manual equipment. There is, . however, one scheme that the British Post Office has embarked upon which is likely to prove useful and economical; and that is the erection of small rural automatic telephone exchanges in villages where a 24-hour service could not profitably be given on any other system. The British Post Office has already placed orders for about 200 of these smaller exchanges. In these eases, they erect a small building, usually of concrete, and install the necessary apparatus, and the exchange is kept locked up, except for the periodical visits of inspection by the workmen who keep the apparatus in good going order. The British General Electrical Company is one of the five large telephone manufacturing firms supplyir~ the automatic equipment to the Briut.li Post Office. POSITION IN TJ.S.A. "In America, until about 1925, only a limited number of automatic exchanges were .in operation, mostly installed by private telephone companies outside the control of the great American Telegraph and Telephone Company. This company confined itself to the manual equipment until quite recently; but now it is rapidly changing over to the automatic system. Already several large automatic exchanges have been erected in New York and other big cities; and, like England and other countries, Amercia will eventually have nothing but automatic exchanges, except in the smaller centres. America, leads in the number of telephones per head of population; but New.Zealand is certainly in the first four or five in that respect, and is well the first in regard to the proportion of automatic telephone exchanges installed. It is a high proportion when one considers the popuiatio-n of the Dominion. New Zealand leads the world in this respect.

NEW ZEALAND ENGINEERS COMPLIMENTED.

"In passing, I would like to compliment the New Zealand Post Office telephone engineers on the excellent work they have done in the installing of the automatic exchanges. The work is done here by the Post and Telegraph Department's own employees, whereas in most other countries such work is carried .out by the contractors who supply the equipment. In Australia, also, the work is done by the Department's own men. This, as in the case of New Zealand, has really been brought about in large measure by the fact that it would be very expensive to bring a body of installers over here from England or America, or wherever the plant comes from. Australia has done very well so far as automatic installations are concerned, and is forging ahead rapidly now. But she has, probably, still some way to go to catch up with New Zealand in regard to the proportion of automatic exchanges erected."