Abstract
THE economic blizzard from which the world is now suffering has affected the rate of telephone development in Great Britain to a smaller extent than in any other of the principal nations. Sir Thomas Purves states that the net increase per annum in Great Britain in recent years has been about 125,000 stations. In the last complete year (1931–32) it fell to 84,000. Nevertheless, it is the largest increase recorded in any country of the world for the same period. For the whole of Europe, outside of Great Britain, the net increase was less than 200,000. In some countries the number of cessations of service exceeds the number of new subscribers and a net loss is registered. In North America, for example, the net loss is about 550,000 stations. For the current year, it is probable that there will be a net increase in Great Britain of about 80,000 and that many of the countries of Europe will show actual losses. In America there will be a large loss. If a revival of trade occurs, the telephone development of Great Britain will go forward by leaps and bounds. In the matter of underground, telegraph and telephone cables, Great Britain has been from the first a pioneer. For building open telegraph and telephone lines it is still necessary to depend on Norway and Sweden for slow-grown raw timber. English and Scottish mountain pine and Canadian and Australian timber have proved disappointing. The use of poles of metal and concrete has been investigated on numerous occasions, but so far the cost of these alternatives has proved prohibitive. The timber used for general construction purposes is obtained entirely from home and Empire sources. The whole of the extensive radio plant and apparatus for long-distance communication used by the Post Office is of British manufacture.
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Telephone Development. Nature 130, 732 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/130732a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/130732a0