Cables and Wireless

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 306, 17 March 1928, Page 8

Cables and Wireless

GIRDLE ROUND THE WORLD

Significance of Big Merger

THE marcli of a system that three years ago was scorned as a rival of the older methods is reflected in the fusion of the powerful Marconi and Eastern interests. This big financial merger clearly represents the cable eoncei'n’s acknowledgment that radio, as a competitor, has “arrived.” Yet, less than two years ago, Sir John Denison-Pender, chairman of the Eastern Telegraph Company, said: "The competition of wireless telegraphy is not considered seriously.”

\\7ERE New Zealand not protected ” by Its interest in the Pacific cable system, whicli has increased its business enormously since it was opened in 1902, there might be a danger of higher communication costs as a result of the linking of the great Imperial cable and wireless interests. The effect of the merger is to place the Marconi-Eastern organisation in control of the main communicationfacilities on one side of the world. The Eastern Company’s cables form a web in the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean, traversing these great ex-

pauses of deep sea, and linking their shores to England- Only in the Pacific and the North Atlantic do the Eastern Company’s magic ropes not span the gloomy valleys of the ocean. Across Australia, South America and the baking plains of India go its landlines. Its subsidiary line, the famous “extension,” laid between Sydney and Nelson in the “seventies,” was the first means New Zealand had of communicating rapidly with the outer world; and its £20,000,000 worth of cables represent one of the greatest business propositions of the world. This is the concern, once all-power-ful, that has bowed to the inevitable, and linked its fortunes to the newer forces. The Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company has gradually assumed a prestige that was formerly the mon-

;opoly of the cable companies. During the war, not content with the success he had already accomplished. Marconi persevered with his dream . of directional communication by wire- : less, and it was these experiments, or- ! iginallv conducted across the English I Channel, that gave the world the beam system. Its basic principle is a series of what are called “parabolic reflectors” —that is, transmitting towers arranged in a curve, the beam being transmitted from the centre of the inside of the curve. It must not be imagined that the beam system ensures absolute secrecy. Beam messages sent to England from Canada are clearly heard in New York. England's replies have been picked up at Awarua, North Auckland. Nevertheless the system has progressed to such an extent that between England and Canada, South Africa, South America, or Australia, it has c t an enormous amount of business away from the cables. One of its advantages is speed. Transmission and reception are virtually instantaneous. To meet such competition the cable companies have had to improve their transmission gear, and lay the special new “loaded” cables, which are faster than the old type. But still the competition of wireless was inexorable, and now the Eastern Company has so far surrendered as to amalgamate. PACIFIC CABLE’S SUCCESS Before the days of wireless the worst set-back suffered by the Eastern Company was the severe competition introduced in 1902, when the interested Governments of Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Britain opened the Pacific cable. From that time the bulk of New Zealand’s business began to go via Pacific. On the first day, for instance, the Eastern lines got only one message from New Zealand. To-day the proportion is 65 to 35 in the Pacific cable’s favour, though there is sufficient business to pay both organisations quite handsomely. While wireless has been developing, the cable companies have not been idle. Their processes have been accelerated, and their rates reduced. Furthermore, the Eastern Company has to its lasting credit the enterprise it showed in developing a widespread Imperial cable system, the greatest in the world, along routes were chosen always, regardless of cost, because they could the more easily be guarded by British warships iu time of war. It is obvious at the moment that the cable, with its facilities for secrecy, has fundamental advantages over wireless. The future, of course, may hold limitless possibilities in radio development. But in the meantime the big English amalgamation has signified that the twin systems can be worked best, and most profitably, when they go hand in hand.