Arizona republican., 1909-02-18
IMPROVING SYSTEM
 LOCAL TELEPHONE co.
A Peg Count Shows Present Load on the Wires is 50 Per Cent. Greater Than Six Months Ago.

Few Phoenix people perhaps are aware that the Consolidated Tele- phone and Telegraph company has broadened its field by taking advan- tage of it's wires for the inaugura- tion of a telegraph Iservice. This is not general or public, of coupse, but it is nevertheless a telegraph ser vice of large extent for it is a through wire connection from Den yer to Phoenix, for the use of the brokerage firm of Logan & Bryan, which maintains an office in Phoe- nix. A similar service will at no distant day be established in Pres cott and Globe.
 | This, however, is unimportant compared with other things the company is doing. C. w. Hinch
 cliffe the general manager who has
 been here for a few days, has ap- proved an estimate for new materials
 to be used in the next six months amounting to S30,000. This will in- clude the extension as well as the repair, improvement and remodeling | of the local system and will begin | just as soon as the material arrives | Just as soon as the new cables are here the work of taking down the | big telephone poles on Adams and Washington streets will begin and the wires will thereafter run under ground. That is only one of many | important improvements that are proposed.
 The telephone business of the town is growing quite rapidly. Indeed a | peg count" which shows the num- Der of calls in a stated time taken the other day gave a most surprising result, though undoubtedly the load on the system at this time is much greater than it will be a little later. This is the busy time of the year and the legislature being in session adds much to the general use of the telephones. Previous to six months ago a peg count was taken once a month, but in the last six months it has been neglected by reason of the strenuousness of other matters.
 The last previous count showed that the average number of calls in a telephone day of twentyfour hours was 5000. A count was made from D. m. February 15. to C p. m. February Is, and the number of calls
  orators on duty at the local switch
 during the twenty-four hours, the average number of calls answered in day by the central girls was nearly 1000. By stopping to think a minute one can get an idea of what an all pervading ocean of talk pours into the aural appendages of a central girl in a day, and it is surprising that they are not all ner- vous wreclls. One can scarcely blame them for saying lines busy" when he don't really think it is. If | the ordinary business man has to answer the telephone twenty times i, day he thinks he has been doing lot of talking, but when he stops to think that for each one of these conversations, each central girl has fifty, he must appreciate that she has a remarkable faculty for hear ing, things even if she is unaccount- ably deaf at time.
 Returning more closely to the subject, this count shows that the present busiRess of the local sys- tenn, that is the present load upon it, though not its revenue, is nearly fifty per cent greater than it was six months ago, notable increase, even if it is discounted one-half on account of the particular rush of the legislature. And in this peg count the long distance calls are not in cluded. These will average about 200 per day and are attended to by two additional operators.
 The busiest hour of the day is between 9 and 10 o'clock a. m. when all the business people are ar ranging their affairs for the day and when all the housewives are ordering their supplies etc. etc. The number of phones in use in the Phoenix ex- change, including the suburban phones, is about 1300
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