There will be a great reduction in the present number of open wh bout the streets, a cessation of the system of employing "drop" and "loose" wires from buildings and houses and allowance will be in the new cables for the great increase in the number of telephone subscribers that are bound to come with the growth of Shanghai.
With the dialling system Shanghai will see an end of the present battery. ox with the long familiar cranking apparatus and these batteries will be replaced by single units of huge voltage in each feeder station Joented about the Settler When the plans are em and the work completed ther be an and to the possibility of climatic changes that works such havoc at present with the telephones and under the new order the heat of midsummer will have no effect whatever, With the new system maintenance
there will be an eventual saving to costs will be reduced greatly and the company in the repair department.
"It is expected the work will occu fully 18 months and the cost be hundreds of thousands of della While it is not definitely known who the Chinese are who will do the work as they are employed by the contractors, it is believed that they will be the force who have recently carried out similar work in Canton and made the telephone system of that city one of the best in the Orient.
If #0, they are well versed im their duties and there will be no uterruption in the service while the change is underway Large Quantity of New*Equipment The work will require thousands of miles of new wire and considerable equipment and will be perhaps the greatest forward step ever taken by the company, It will xtart'as soon as possible and it is Delieved that the change of the central district will be completed by Spring.
In commenting on the telephone system in general, officials of the Company point out that there is perhaps no city in the Orient that has seen the rapid growth that nas Shanghai, and where plans were made years ago for a large tele-Phone system, the increase of the city has been beyond the most sanguine expectations.
With the opening of new roads and the constructions of highways, the Telephone Company is kept busy estimating what types of buildings are to be in the vicinity and probable number of telephones that will be required. The cables are then Taw oF stretened as required and it has been frequently the case that Large increases are asked for immediately on the opening of the ings to tenants.
'A ease in point is that of a recently constructed building in the Settlement where the architects and the surveyors of the telephone company made an estimate of the probable number of telephones that would be required. There were many large offices and was decided that perhaps 300 telephones would serve the building. These cables were laid while the water mains and similar underground work was being done in order not to hinder traffic and to save the obviously greater costs of reopening the street.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.