AUTOMATIC TELEPHONES.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 8, 4 January 1913, Page 8

AUTOMATIC TELEPHONES.

KEEPING UP-TO-DATE. (Per Press Association.) Wellington, January 3. Tho Postmaster-General states that the Government has called for a full automatic equipment far the telephone exchanges at Auckland, Wellington, Blenheim, Hamilton, Masterton, and Oamaru. Tenders are to close on May Ist. The companies that manufacture apparatus of this kind have been invited to submit tenders. The equipments for Auckland and Wellington, will be for some thousands cf lines each, while the requirements of the smaller places named will be met by the installation of a few hundred lines in each case. The two cities of Wellington and Auckland have practically but grown the ultimate capacity of the existing class of switchboard. It lias been decided to abandon the introduction of more manual switchboards, and with that object automatic apparatus to ac-' commodate 500 subscribers for each of the places named has been ordered, and is duo to arrive in tho Dominion within two or three weeks, when a start will be at once made to get it ready for operation. The small places referred to have at present very inferior appliances, and as new apparatus is necessary it has been decided to equip them with what is considered to be the most efficient system. There are other places that also require new telephone exchange equipments. These however, are less urgent, and will receive consideration later.

Tho cities of Christchurch and Dunedin have not yet reached the ultimate capacity of their present switchboards. It is, therefore, possible for them to carry on for a while longer, but it is considered that the invroduction of the automatic system at those places would effect bo-h economy and improvement in the service, and it is hoped that it will be possible to instal tile full automatic system at no very distant date in some cf the exchanges at present working on the earth return system. Arrangements have been made to instal metallic circuits as' soon as the material can be provided. This will, in some instances, be done by means of an armoured cable, laid in trenches, or where circumstances warrant it, in suitable conduits.