Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1907-08-01
VERY SMALL DEFECTS
Often Cause Telephone Com
panies Great Trouble And
Much Money!.

Perhaps there are OF dozen tele-
phone users in Grand Rapids who are
familiar with the difficulties and eX-
penSe attached to the telephone busi-
ness. The excellent service every
resident of this city has been receiy-
ing, and the promptneSS with which
wrongs are righted by the Wood
County Co., have tended to lessen the
interest in the more important efforts
of the company to keep the service up
to the standard. However, the fol-
lowing account of some Of the diff
culties met with by telephone COM
panies, will give REPORTER readers a
clearer understanding of the inner
workings and expense, and therefore
we re-publISh the same from an eX-
change:
Figures show that the minor "trOu-
bles" Of the telephone service and the
measures taken TO keep the plant in
perfect working condition. day in and
day out, cost the companies millions
of dollars every year This does not
count the havoc wrought among the
wires by storms and fiOOdS-the Gala
mites of the business, as they may be
called-but includes only the diurnal
round Of things gone wrong, which
are sometimes simple enough when
they are found, but are Often very
difficult to locate and always even
more expensive. to the telephone men
than to their subscribers.
After all, it is surprising when you
come to think it, how little inter-
ruption of the telephone service there
is. The records of exchanges in the
big cities show that on the average no
one subscribers service is interrupted,
even for second. Oftener than once in
four years. A TO- 900 line switchboard,
such aS is used in the larger central
offices, contains 1900 miles of wire
and 1000, 900 SOldered connections.
With hundreds of thousands of small
parts, including $4,000 incandeScent
electric lamp signals ne bigger around
| than an old fashioned slate pencil,
with tilamentS finer than human
hair. The auxiliary apparatus
through which the outside circuits
are distributed and brought to the
switchboard contains others hundreds
of thousands of wire and other
hundreds of thousands of parts. For
instance, the relay" each subscribers
line-each line having it's own special
relay-cOntainS mile and half of
wire as fine as ordinary sewing cotton
so fine that it takes four miles of it
to weigh pound; and besides the
subscribers relays there are several
hundred others for trunk lines, office
circuits, operators positions, and so
on.
In this maze of delicately adjusted
mechanism occur nearly half of all
the telephone mans troubles. For
tunately for him, the central office
plant is arranged with such skiltul
method that every part Of it can be
reached easily if anything goes wrong,
and many cases of trouble In the eX-
change equipment are remedied with
out the subscriber knowing that they
have occurred. But to keep the sys-
tenn, inside and out, in the perfect
working order which minimiZes
TROUBLES" and assures efficient SER
vice is tremendous expense, the
companies setting aside third of
their gross income every year for
maintenance and repairs.
Considerable malicious damage is
done by thieves, who strip cables,
leaving the wires exposed to rain and
sleet, for the sake of the lead of which
the covering is made. Squirrels are
almost as bad as two-legged thieves,
gnawing the protecting metal away
and sometimes tampering with the
insulation OF the wires within. The
brushing of overhanging tree limbs
against the wires, particularly in wet
weather, when the trees are heavy
and being damp, are good electrical
conductors, is the commonest, per-
haps and is so detrimental to good
transmission that in some localities
the companies resort TO private rights
of way broad enough to allow the cut
ting away on both sides of everything
that can possibly interfere with the
circuits.