DOMINION’S TELEPHONES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 840, 7 December 1929, Page 15

DOMINION’S TELEPHONES

AMPLE SUPPLY FOR NEW SUBSCRIBERS CONNECTIONS IN ARREARS From Our Oion Reporter. WELLINGTON, Today. The Post and Telegraph Department has the work of connecting telephone subscribers well in hand all over the Dominion, a Department official told an inquirer yesterday. In Wellington there was only one subscriber waiting to bo connected. In Auckland city at the end of October last there were only 47 applicants being dealt with. In Christchurch there were 100 and in Dunedin only six. As the department averages a total of 1,000 connections a month, that is considered very good. “Taking the Dominion as a whole, we have only on hand about 800 applications, or less than one month’s work in making connections,” said the official. In September, 1922, there were upward of 4,800 would-be subscribers waiting to be connected with the telephone system and it was extremely difficult to get the work done, owing to the great shortage of material. In June, 1924, there were still over 4,000 connections in arrears and in October, 1926, there were 2,600. The turningpoint came in August, 1927, when the number of connections in arrears was only 1,473, and the number has been gradually reduced until it now stands at the practically irreducible minimum of 800.