F—l

New Exchanges Established During the year the undermentioned new telephone exchanges were opened:—

In addition, the Albany exchange in the Waitemata County was converted to rural automatic working giving service to 232 subscribers at the end of the year.

Proposed New Exchanges The following is a list of places at which it is proposed to install new telephone exchanges as the next phase of the development plan:—

It is also intended to convert the Orini exchange (Raglan County) and the "Waipahi exchange (Clutha County) to rural automatic working during the next twelve months. Although it is proposed that ultimately all the exchanges named in the foregoing list will be automatic, some will be established on a manual basis as a temporary measure until such time as automatic equipment comes to hand from overseas. The establishing of rural automatic exchanges is in accord with Government's policy of providing a twenty-four-hour telephone service throughout country areas. It is the intention to open automatic exchanges in many other country areas as soon as practicable, and the necessary preliminary surveys are now in hand. Altogether twenty-four rural automatic units have been received. Six have already been installed, five during the past twelve months and the remainder have been allocated to specific areas. Fifty more are on order and will begin coming to hand towards the end of the year. The housing and installation of these small automatic units presents few problems, but many hundreds of manhours and large quantities of line material are absorbed in reticulating a rural area by telephone cables and pole-lines to provide the circuits necessary to serve these relatively sparsely-populated districts, and the lack of staff and adequate supplies of poles are retarding factors.

14

Place. County. Type of Exchange. Date Opened. Number of Subscribers as at 31st March, 1949. A h aura Becks Glen Murray Mangakino Oparau Tokoroa Grey Maniototo Raglan Taupo Kawhia Matamata Rural automatic Rural automatic Rural automatic Manual Rural automatic Manual 8th December, 1948 30th November, 1948 15th May, 1948 2nd August, 1948 .. 27th May, 1948 25th March, 1949 .. 91 57 96 115 88 248

Place. County. Place. County. Awhitu Donnellys Crossing .. Harihari Mount Maunganui .. Murupara Ohai Otira Franklin. Hobson. Westland. Tauranga. Whakatane. Wallace. Westland. Panetapu South. Hillend.. Te Pahu Wataroa Whitianga Whangamata .. Otorohanga. Southland Raglan. Westland. Coromandel. Thames.