Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1905-04-05
THE TELEPHONE.
Interesting Statistics Regarding the |
American Il. * Il. Co.


Interesting Statistics Regarding the
American I. x T. Co.
The annual report of President F. P.
Fish, of the American Telephone & Tel
egraph Co., just issued, shows that the
number OF subscribers to the Bell system
is practically 100 per cent greater than
three years ago In almost every part OF
the country each subscriber is now able
to talk to twice as many telephones, and
through these to proportionslly larger
number OF people, so that the value oil
the service to the user constantly increases,
ind its cost to the subscriber, in relation
to its value, is reduced.
The report says that from the point OF
view of the companies and from that oil
the public the establishment of rates for
service which will give an adequate re-
turn, and at the same time make rates
suitable for the varying requirements of
subscribers, alike fair to large and small
users, is most important. No two locali-
ties have the same investment per
station, nor is the cost OF operating the
same, but as communities increase in size,
conditions arise which largely increase
the cost.
Standard rates are reduced from time to
time whenever conditions justify, and a
constantly increasing proportion of the
telephones installed is furnished at the
lower scale of rates adapted to the needs
of smaller users. 1t seems well estab-
Iished that the larger and more densely
populated a community is, the higher
must be the rates for the kind of service
required in such community.
In the largest cities, with extensive and
costly underground construction, heavy
real estate investment, complicated CEN
trial office equipment, expensive out of all
proportion to the number of subscribers,
and many other conditions involving
heavy expenses not found in smaller COM
munities, there is demand for engineer
ing skill of the highest order, and courage
to incur the great expense necessary to
give the amount and character of service
required.
The number of telephone companies
originally organized to operate independ-
emily of the Bell companies which have
decided it is to their interest to become
part OF the Bell system is steadily lncreaS-
ing. This is significant as showing the
growing appreciation of the value OF the
Bell service, and the contracts under
which~these arrangements are made are
clearly for mutual advantage as well as
for the advantage of the community
served.
By the bulletin on telephones issued by
the census bureau there were on Dec. 81,
1902, "a, OBJ telephones classified as indie
pendent which were PORTION of the Bell
system, and this number has grown SO
that on Dec. 81, 1901, there were 167, 213
stations of this class. Not including the
foregoing, the number of exchange sta
tions il the Bell system at the close of
the year was !, 799, 633, an increase during
the year of ga, 1866.
In addition to these there were tele-
phones used for private line purposes and
snb-license stations, so that the total
number of telephone stations of the Bell
system on Dee. 81, 1904, was zoos, 213. The
total mileage of wire of the companies
was 4.671 OBS, of which 712,14 miles were
addea during the year.
The daily average of toll connections
was 301 900, and of exchange connections
II, 149 ,0C0, or total number of telephone
connections during the year of about
1857 ,C00,0co.
The expenditure for construction of all
the Bell companies during the year was
S33, 436, 100 and during the last five years
there has been expended on the Bell tele-
phone plants the sum of sl6S, 766, 400.