The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-11-04
TAKING A CENSUS FOR THE YEAR 1920
of Made-"Character the of system Upbuld of ak tenn


 Boston, Nov 3.--If it is a delicate job for the Weather Bureau experts to forecast the changes of atmospheric conditions few days in advance. or for the political experts to give gooo reasons for their ante election predlc- tions, an obviously much more dimcuit task 1t must be to forecast the amount of talking over the telephone wires the American people will be doing thir- teen years from now. Yet that Is line of prediction upon which the engineers of the Bell companies of the United States are just now working. AS a means of discovering just Tow the needs of the future can best be fnet' step by step, the telephone census mas become an accepted part of modern tel enhone engineering. It is probably the only one of it's kind to be taken from fen to twenty years in advance, with absolute completeness of detail.
 The plan of work is thorough and nainstaking Locality by locality the engineers of a company go over thelr territory and find out how many lines will be needed. say in 1920; where each one of these will probably be located; where each exchange should be placed; how many square feet of floor space will be required; how many busy oper- ators will be handling calls thirteen years from now; what restroom 1acll- ities these will need-everything, Tn fact. regarding the plant down to the minutest details Is carefully forecasted. Cuesswork 1t might seem to the out slider. but it must be guesswork SO re- markedly good that no serious mistakes can be made in the new constructor, year by year.
 The telephone engineer has, for starter, the carefully tabulated statls- tics of the growth of his company m recent years showing how rapidly the number of lines and of subscribers has | increased; how the revenue has been 1 affected by extensions of service, by reductions in rates and other causes | how the average number Of messages originating day by day at each tele- phone station, has varied; how the toll traffic has grown in relation to the local traffic. These and an immense number of other statistics form d basis TOT mathema tical calculation
 [, But office work alone does not sat isfy the modern telephone engineer desire for thoroughness. The problem must be seen face to face. According ly he sends his young men out into ev- erv street of every town in his terri tory. These observers make notes as | they go about, just as carefully as an assessor would cover his district, but | always with an eye to the probable 1u- | ture as well to the actual present: | From tte data they have gathered ana | brought to the office every house and every vacant lot Is plotted on map Facts regarding the improvement or deterioration of neighborhoods are noted Residences are divided into | three class-s: the first those that may fairly be expected by 1920 to nave an | average of one telephone line to each | house; second. those in which an av-
 eragc of one line to every other fam l ily may be predicted; third. those In
 which an average of one line to every l six families may be predicted. Simi- l larly. the places of business are class 1 flied into single wire groups and two party wire groups
 Out of the character map thus l formed an estimate can be made of the
 whole number of lines which each ex-
 change district should have in 1920. l This count Is made, not simply on the | basis of the yearly increase of the tel | enhone traffic. but also on studies of | inc growth of each city and town IT ] the district While it is assumed tha, | a manufacturing centre will continue | tn be d manufac turing centre, and thai a place whose importance is deter l mined by it's being a main distributlns | point will continue to hold that char | acter efforts are being made to get lin' | on the probable standing of each place | a decade or more hence. Not all towns | of equal population are going to b' alike as regards capacity for telephon' use. Data are gathered from real es tate men and others specially interest ed. The quality of the population whici is moving into the different cities i considered One place, it Is assumed
 will have in 1920 an average of tftoei telephone lines to loo of population Another. perhaps. of the same size
 having a different character of popu lation will be good for only ten line
 Ter hundred of population.
 The number and location of eS changes has to be predetermined. Tn web of lines which may centre at
 single switchboard is now about 1000
 and it is not thought that this mum
 Der will be greatly exceeded while tn length of the operator's arm remains
 as nature established it. Many new
 exchanges. therefore, must be built i,
 thirteen years, and many a city nov
 having but a single operator will b.
 placed upon a multi office basis"
 The switchboards. furthermore. mus
 generally be located as to incur
 minimum of expense for wire mileage
 Such a location cannot always be SC
 cured. Once it has been determine,
 approximately where new eXchanS,
 must be opened some years hence
 study of the real estate conditions O
 that ne ghborhood is made. The land
 perhai $, on the street where the ex
 change theoretically should be is al
 ready So expensive that it will seen | cheaper in the end to pay little nor,
 for the extra wire mileage and locat,
 the building q few blocks away. Sucl
 considerations have constantly to bt
 balanced against each other.
 For every sizab,e city condui
 study must be made. for wherever pub
 lie support of the telephone justifies tn,
 much more expensive form of construc
 tion. the wires may be laid unde'
 ground. Many cities. of course, whict
 now have the overhead wires will. Ions | before 1920. be provided with under
 ground facilities. Many others whicl l already have some underground mile age, will have acquired much more O