New Britain herald., 1914-05-02
UNITED STATES HAS
 7,5o0,ooo PHONES
Almost One-haf Of Number in
 Whole World. ..-

system.' says the last advertisement I have come across of the American Telephone and Telegraph company. T,50O,000 telephones are connected and work together to take care of the telephone needs of the people of this country
 "An Englishman can only gape in envy and amazement at such stupen- dous figures. They mean that there are more than twice as many tele- phones operating under single system in the United States as there are under all systems and all com panies in the whole of Europe Tele- phone statistics are not easily obtain able. but do not think I am far wrong in asserting that there are about 16,00O,000 telephones in exist erse the world over and that of these North Am erica (including Canada and the West Indies and Mexico) accounts Cor nearly 12,O00,000; Europe for slightly over 3,000,OO0, and Asia, Africa, South America and Australasia for about 500,000. Roughly speaking, over two-thirds of the worlds equip nnent of telephones is to be found in the American Union.
 Few Phones in London. R''It is worth while looking into these aSures a little more closely. Of the cities possessing 10000 telephones and over, considerably more than half are situated in the United States. There s are at least fifty American towns where there is a telephone to less than every ten of the inhabitants: in Europe there is only one. London. ] with a population more than three times as great as Chicago, has fewer telephones; Paris is twice the size of Boston but possesses little more than half as many telephones; Liverpool, . three times as great as Los Angeles, ! has only a little over a third of it's number of telephones; Glasgow, twice the size of Cincinnati, has seven thousand fewer telephones; Birming hSen with a population of over half C million, has four thousand fewer telephones than Grand Rapids. with a population of some 140,0O0: Manches- ter has fewer telephones than Louis- vile, though 1t is ever four times as big. Moscow has fewer than Seattle. though its population is five times greater: Vienna with four times the ] population of Detroit has twenty thousand fewer telephones; Hamburg has ten thousand fewer than Cleve- land, a city half it's size; Milan, with a population of well over half 8 mill lion, has about a third as many tele- s phones as Omaha, with a population of 160,000 Breslau Is considerably over four times the size of Spokane 3 and yet boasts five thousand fewer telephones; and Amsterdam with a population of nearly 60O,OO0 has fewer than Des Moines with popula- ton of 90,O0O.
 
 "In the whole of the United King dom there are only about as many Telephones as in New York and Chicago; in all France there are fewer than in Chicago alone; in all Russia there are fewer than in Philadelphia; in Austria fewer than in Boston; in Italy fewer than in Los Angeles; in Spain fewer than in Toledo, Ohio; in Belgium fewer than Kansas City; and in Hungary fewer than in Pittsburg. We may take figures in yet another way. Roughly speaking, there is one telephone for every nine Americans. If the same proportion obtained in N Europe, Denmark would have three times as many telephones as she actually possesses: Sweden three and half times; Norway four and half times; Switzerland five times; Ger many six and half times; Great Britain seven and half times; The Netherlands eleven times; Belgium nearly eighteen times as many; France nineteen times; Austria all but thirty times; Hungary thirty-seven times: Italy fifty-six times; Portugal and Spain about ninety times; Russia enc hundred and five times and Greece, Servia and Bulgaria from one hundred and seventy to two hundred and four times as many.
 Old Plants in Europe.
 What, then, is the explanation? For the superiority of the American teIebhone system, does not reside in numbers merely. If one could in- stitute a comparison between the effi- ciency of the telephone services pro- vided in Europe and in America, the disparity on the scientific and com mercial sides, and particularly from. the standpoint of the consumers con- svenience, would be found to be even greater. Not only are there far fewer telephones in Europe than in the United States but those that exist are, aSsa rule, and as every traveller has learned by bitter experience. almost ludicrously inferior in quality.
 There are great and famous towns in Europe at this moment where plant and apparatus of the kind that went to the scrap-heap in America twenty years ago still obtain; where thef obsolete magneto system. long ago abandoned in the United States for the central battery is still adhered to; where the old flat rate scheme of tariffs is still the rule; and where the single exchange district. with relative < ly high rates for distant parts of the town, still holds the field; while Throughout the length and breadth of England and the Continent there is hardlly a single efficient long distance