The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-08-26

The. Facts of the Telephone Situation
 in Alabama
 Bg J. Epps BRown President
 SOUTHERN BELL TELEPHONE A TELEGRAPH CO.,
 Quality of the Service Prior to the war; the telephone service Alabama equal to the best Service reports from all parts of the United States eaD fish this fact.
 Today the service not equal to the prear standard This the direct result of furnishing the abnoay large volume of service both exchange and toll shown last advertisement We furnishing far greater volume o srve than the plant was designed and constructed furnish We had aena- The vital needs of the pubic, both commercial ana oc required that we do this.
 This demand for service continues larger and more in, stent Every telephone that install and every additional toll message that transmitted before the additions to the plant under completed and into servce delays and prevents the improvement of the service
 Efficient telephone service involves fundamental pre- . requisites:
 a) Adequate facilities including unused margin of not less
 than IS per cent (b) An adequate force of trained and skilled workers The of switchboard equipment every central office is upon the basis of the average daily number ot calls to be handled This determines the number of operators positions for each switchboard Each operator handle only be of calls per hour When the number of calls hour exceed the capacity the switchboard and beyond the human endurance of the operator the connections simply cannot be promptly made.9
 Since the stchboards now installed the average daily number of calls has materially increased that the switch boards today carrying greater load than they engineered md constructed to carry. All surplus switchboard equipment has disappeared having been put daily This makes impossible add add ona operators adjust the load varying conditions This is equally true of the toll switchboard
 The toll kewse engineered and constructed to transmit certain of messages during definite period of ne When greater number of messages forced upon the toll c the quality of inevitably impaired Today greater load placed upon the toll than they designed to- can efficiently carry
 There is nothing haphazad accidental telephone plant Each part engineered to perform definite Junction. the being dependent upon each part nctionmg designed The switchboard Is the heart of the The pacv of the switchboard both the quantity and the quality of the service.
 The operators have more than done their part If the public could know what efforts and many instances sacrifices they have made to serve you would be grateful to these ne asi the Company. A
 While the service efficient prcwar sery1ce, very large per of all calls both exchange and to cA cienly handled > It is the small percentage of calls which go that criticism in the minds of the individual subscribers who accept the larger percentage of calls satisfactorily handled matter of 
 These are the facts conditions theories the sole of the present situation.
 The quality of service furnished by this Company, always the conoste of conditions just furnished by any other bre enterprise public private Service dependent upon and varies with conditions.
 The sole solution of the situation adequate aceand trained H forces there Is other remedy
 The neat Advertisement c state Company has done to the needed taclities