THE TELEPHONE

Hokitika Guardian, 9 August 1929, Page 7

THE TELEPHONE

THE CANADIAN SYSTEM. (From Sir Robert Donald who wa* Chairman of the Committees on Imperial Wireless telegraphy and tlie Committee on the Organisation of Imperial Wireless Services). MONTREAL, June 26. Telephoning is a. pleasure in Canada. Here the telephone is indispensable; in England it is only a convenience—and sometimes the opposite. Efficiency of the service is normal in Canada; in England inadequacy is usual. That is perhaps why thirteen out of every hundred inhabitants in the Dominion have; telephones compared with three in every hundred in England.

Only one country is ahead of Canada in the use of telephones—the United States—which has only one more in every hundred.

The London telephone area, which stretches from Waltham Ctobs in the north to Reigate in the south, eastward to Tilbury,' anid westward to Hayes—an ailea containing the world’s greatest centres of finance and commerce and residential cities of the wealthy—has as great a population as the wholo of Canada, but does not possess half as many telephones. In the United Kingdom telephones are the monoply of the Post Office; in Canada two-thirds of the telephones are owned and operated by the Canadian Bell Telephone Corporation. There are over two thousand smaller undertakings, including many local companies, western municipalities, and the Governments of the Prairie Provinces, and all work well in spite of multiple ownership.

The telephone was invented at Brantford in Ontario, by the late Graham Bell, and Canada has thus a paternal interest in tl;e invention. That fact is not in itself sufficient to account for the population of the telephone, which is duo to its efficiency.

The first pleasant change one finds is the rapidity of communication. Automatic telephones are coming '-into general use in Canada, but apart from the mechanical precision of. the automatic, communication between one exchange and another and "to«. distant places is equally rapid. One is connected, almost simultaneously with -the call. * ' '

The telephone is used to the utmost of its capacity as a You are put in direct communication at once. You call up the busiest man in Canada—(Sir Herbert Holt, hanker and business man; Mr B. W. Beatty, head of the 0.P.R..; Mr Nqill, manager of the Royal Bank of Canada, or any other of the financial and ■ industrial leaders, and you get through to them without delay and without an intermediary.

There are no interrogatories about who’s speaking or what-your business is. No one’s time is wasted, and the person oalled up sees to it that jrou don’t waste his. Direct contact and quick action is the ' custom.

OUR SLOW-MOTTON CONTRAST. The speedy efficiency of the sendee is in striking contrast with the usual Post Office slow-motion methods we put up with in England. The Canadian operators do not volunteer the information after some delay that they are “trying to get thlem,” and, after further delay, “If you will repeat the number I will, change the line”--an apologetic explanation ,which does not interest' you except that in the meantime you have perhaps fiorgotton the number.

When you know the exchange but not the subscriber’s number, of when you know the name and address but not the exchange, you have to go. a round-about way to get it in England; in Canada your exchange clerk gets it without more ado.

It is, however in the. longer calls that the contrast between the .two telepone systems is most marked. You can sit in an hotel in Montreal or Toronto and get into touch by telenhon,e with anyone in Canada or the United States within ten minutes. The facilities of intercommunication are unequalled. The delays, repeats, and mistakes on the telephones in England would not he tolerated in Canada.

The Post Office should send a party, of supervisors and operators to Canada and the United States to learn how it is done. The telephone should 'be worked to save time and tempers, and fulfil its function with 100 per cent, efficiency.