Imperial Valley press., 1928-08-04
TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH
INDUSTRY MAKES VAST STRIDES

There were 29,37S,430 telephones
in the entire world on January !,
1922, and of these considerably more
than onc.half were in the United
States. On that date there were Il
746, ,l6s telephones in use in this
country, or orer 90 percent Of the
world : total. In all Europe there
were S,osO,i telephones, which IS
less than one half OF the number Ia
the United States and only 27.5
percent of the total number in the
world. The remaining y percent of
the world = telephones were widely
scattered over the globe in Asia,
Africa, Occania, South America and
those countries in North America
outside of the United States. During
1926 there were l,4S4.773 telephones
added to the telephone systems oi
th, world, which was nearly as many
inst trumcnts as were III service
throughout the world at the begin
ming of this century.
These figures have been taken
from a recently published compila
tion of telephone and telegraph
statistics of the world. The time
consumed in securing authoritative
data from the most distant couu.
tries has made it impossible to get
strictly comparable figures for a
later date than January !, 1922.
Out of 20,423,s76 telephones
operated lay private companies
throughout the world, l1.746, l6S
were in the United States, and it
is interesting to note that the eX-
tent of telephone service in relation
to population is markedly greater
in this country than in Europe, In
the United States there were l5.5
telephones per 100 population, as
compared with only l.6 telephones
per 100 population in Europe, where
nearly ~ percent of the telephones
were under govcrnmnt operation.
The only country approaching tn"
United States in point of density of
telephone facilities was Canada,
which, on January |, 1927, had l2.6
telephones per loo of it's inhahit-
ants. New Zealand came third with
Sweden with ~. Australia with
o. aud Norway with 6.3. Germany
ranks next to the United States in
absolute number of telephones, but
had only - telephones per 100
population. In Great Britain and
Northern ireland there were but 3.3
telephones per 100 inhabitants,
while France had only 30 telephones
for every hundred people.
Smaller Towns Benefit
\ notable feature of American
telephone development is the extent
to which telephone facilities have
l.ecn provided in the smaller towns
and rural districts. In communities
of less than 10000 population in
the United States, there are II
telephones per 100 inhabitants,
which means that the people in tho
smaller communities of this coun.
try are more fully provided with
telephones than are the people III
: most of the large cities in Europe.
And this is true despite the fact
that telephones in European coun-
titles are largely concentrated in
| the metropolitan areas. For example,
London has more than one-third of
the total number of telephones IN
Great Britain; and Paris has over
one-third of all the telephones in
France. Genetally speaking, rural
telephone service in European coun-
tries is almost negligible.
When the telephone facilities of
United States are compared with
those of foreign cities, American
superiority is again marked. New
York, for instance, has almost a.
many telephones Ms the whole OF
Great Britain aud Northern Ireland
Chicago has more than all France
and Los Angeles has nearly as many
as Austria and Belgium combined
In fact, the eight cities of the
United States with a population OF
one million or more have more than