SELF-ACTING TELEPHONE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 109, 16 January 1912, Page 6

SELF-ACTING TELEPHONE.

NO MORE EXCHANGES. \ A SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT.

The telephone girl, the crescendo "Hello! Hello! Exchange," and the exasperating delays will (says a London newspaper) shortly be things of the past. The first public demonstration, of the working of the automatic telephone system which the General Post Office has' ordered for some provincial towns was given at Donnington House, Strand, London, on November 23, and it was shown that by this system one subscriber could ring up another without the aid of any exchange operator and with no loss of time.

The Strowger system, a combination of American inventions, has already been working for years in over 50 towns in the United States and in many other parts of the world. At the beginning of 1911 four experts from the English Post Office went across the sea to see it in use and as a result of their report one installation has been ordered for the Central London Post Office, another for Epsom, and a third for Portsmouth, while negotiations l , l are in progress for Leeds and other'towns. The London automatic service is not for the use of the public. It is being put up so that the General Post Office officials may thoroughly test it. But 600 subscribers m Epsom will be connected with it, and a larger number in Portsmouth early in the Now Year. If arrangements are completed the system at Leeds will include pover 5000 subscribers. London wiU have to wait, as the authorities are anxious to thoroughly test the working or the system .before introducing it int. 6 he most complicated telephone service in tne world.

The demonstration was given bv the British Insulated Helsby Cables, Ltd th* company that is introducing the system into Great Britain. Mr. Taylor vice-cha man of the company, iffi <lum Mr. D. Sinclair, formerly engineer-m-chief to the National Telephone Com . T Si T kir gained the working of the system. He said tint automatic telephone exchange are no new He himself had invented and Tncmty bad always -been t" make th Pm deal efficiently with a large Tumbe o lines. One of the advantages of the Strnwßnr system was that it vorta equally well for 100 or 100,000, or any number of lines. In Chicago he saw I ft' I*™ 1 *™ *>j000" subscribed working perfectly smoothly.