The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-10-03
MUCH WORK TO MOVE PHONES

Few people know anything about tele- phone, and the way it works It .sn't intended to attempt to explain them here, because it would take up most of the paper. But it is intended to point out some of the features that make moving phones much harder job than general ly thought with the idea that every one may understand better just why tele- phone service at the present time may not be absolutely satisfactory.
 Every telephone in use requires two continuous wires from the instrument in your house to the frame room in the telephone building, and of course there are two wires connecting the switchboard with the wires where they terminate on the frame. If you move from Norwood to Mountain Terrace a circuit must be found in one of the cables going to Noun tain Terrace: this has to be extended to your house and the phone connected with it. The ends of those two wires must be located on the wire frame and connect ed up with the drop of your old number. Of course if you move into house that already had telephone connection the operation is much simplifed, for then it is only necessary to look up the rec ords and they know immediately just where the changes in the frame room must be made.
 It is certain that the telephone situa- tion in Birmingham is only slightly un- derstood by the great majority of citi- zens Since most of the work in con- nection with telephone service goes on behind closed doors there is no way for them to famliariZe themselves with 1t even if any thought is given to the sub feet. For instance, do you know how many telephones there are in Birming- ham and how many operators are on the switchboards during the day trying to make your service as nearly instantan- eous as possible?
 OVER 17,O00 IN USE HERE
 At the present time there are some- thing over r GOO phones in use in Birming- ham and applications for new phones are greater than the facilities for supply ing them The growth of Birmingham has exceeded the expectations of the telephone company at the time the pres ent exchange was constructed. and the number of drops on the boards is nearly exhausted More serious than this is the cable situation. The wires over which you talk are gathered in large cables
 hundreds of complete circuits in each cable, and these cables radiate from the exchange to the various parts of Birming-
 ham, When all the wires in a cable are
 in use obviously no more phones can be
 installed in the locality supplied by thai cable unless some one gives up his phone or unless new cable is put in use. Thai has already happened in parts of BIT mingham, and as result many people who want phones are unable to get them No one realizes more than the company just how unfortunate such situation is and they are doing all in their power to remedy the matter.
 To keep these 900 phones working prop erly. there are employed in the local of- fees more than 800 people, of which s5' are operators or "centrals." As every one knows a certain number of these ar' on duty during the entire "A hours 36' days in the year. Theirs is not an easy task, handling thousands of calls day and trying to please everybody. 'Ane there are some people who won't bs | pleased, who think it is the operator fault if the number called is busy oI If she fails to say. Number, please? l the minute they pick up the receiver fThey fail to remember that other people are also asking for numbers and tha 1 she can't talk to two at the same time. SWAMPED WITH BBUSINFSS l. This is not intended as an apolog, i for faulty service. It is simply to poin tout to those who use phones and wnt have phones they would like moved tha there are hundreds of others who wan l the same thing at the same time and Una | if all on the same day. George Knox
 manager of the local exchange, realizes just what the situation is and is doing everything possible to please as many as he can. I've are simply swamped witf business" he said yesterday. We've | had applications for more than lso changes of phone all to be made th' first couple of days in October. we ar making them as fast as we can, put
 will take us at lest two weeks tf straighten them all out and in the mean ! time we can only ask every one affected | to be as patient as possible DurIhl normal conditions we have our hands rui for we have just about outgrown our pres ent building, and the other facilities Il Birmingham. Not only is the demand for new phones larger than we can sup ply, but the use of telephones increase
 daily. The average number of calls pc lphone every day is more than 40 pc cent greater at the present time than
 was two years ago..
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