Another feature of the present interworking of the automatic and manual systems is that, when an automatic subscriber rings a West or North. number, the called instrument will only ting once, Subscribers are, therefore, asked to answer their telephones as promptly as possible as, failing their answering, the calling subscriber has to replace his receiver and go through the procedure of re-dialling.
Owing to the rapid development of the Western District, it hax been necessary to transfer a number of lines from West exchange to Lucerne exchange which has necessitated the changing of subscribers' numbers. This change of numbers will appear in the new subscribers' list and it will be seen from list which is now in the course of tribution that.all prefixes denoting exchanges have been dropped and that these numbers are all five digit numbers. Subscribers are therefore asked to make sure of the number they want by referring to the subscribers' list before making a call.
The Automatic System When your directors decided to instal all future extensions of the service on the automatic system, the financial conditions were carefully considered and, to avoid scrapping any part of the company's plant which still had an efficient life, it was decided to make the chanze gradually and for this reason a ewitehbonrd of only a 5,000 line capacity was first ordered for the Gentral District and the parts of the manual switehbourd which would released by the transferring of lines to the automatic were to be used for extensions of the manual service in other districts. The 5,000 me switchboard now completed hus released a certain number of see tions of the manual switchboard and these have been transferred to Lucerne and Western Districts to meet the growing demand there.
Owing to the increased demand for service, a further 5,000 line ewitehtoard was ordered for the Central District and this plant is now being installed and it is hoped to have same completed by Marek or April of next year. When this installation is completed, most of the telephones in the Central District will be transferred to automatic working and this will obv' te good deal of the trouble which now being experienced by subscribers owing to the interworking of the manual and automatic systems. During the process of transfer of this kind, there are numerous difficulties that have to be overcome and your directors would ask all subscribers to assist and cooperate in overcoming these clift culties, Arrangements had to be made to sive interworking between the autoaeatic and the manual and each position on the manual sivitehboard had to be supplied with a dial 0 that, when a manual subscriber To meet the growing demands made on the service it is necessary for an exchange to be built in the French Concession so as to relieve our Central exchange and our West exchange and arrangements are now being made for this purpose.
The average number of faults dealt with daring the past year ha: been 2.27 per station as against 2.02 per station for the previous year,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.