tinues at a high level and further new exchanges and large extensions to existing exchanges are in progress and in the planning stage.
89. At 31st March, 1970 there were 516,984 telephones in service, which was an increase of 71,988 over the figure at the end of March 1969. This represents a penetration factor of approximately 12.8 telephones for 100 population, which is the highest in Asia with the exception of Japan, which has 18 telephones per 100 population.
90. The Hong Kong Telephone Company Limited moved into the electronic field during 1969-70 with the bringing into service of the Company's first semi-electronic exchange at Lai Chi Kok with an initial installation of 10,000 subscriber lines. The exchange will ultimately extend to a minimum of 50,000 subscriber lines.
International Telephone and Telegraph Service
91. Cable and Wireless Ltd. provides the external telephone and telegraph requirements of Hong Kong under the terms of a Licence granted by the Government in 1962 for a period terminating on the 31st December, 1987.
92. An 80-channel submarine cable provides connection westwards to Singapore and eastwards to Guam from where telephone and telegraph circuits extend to many parts of the world. In addition to undersea cables a Satellite Earth Station at Stanley Peninsula which was officially opened by the Governor, Sir David TRENCH on 24th September, 1969, provides circuits to Japan, U.S.A., Thailand and Australia via the Pacific Ocean Intelsat III. Other destinations will be added when necessary and a second Earth Station working to the Indian Ocean Satellite is planned to be operational early in 1971.
93. Telegraph services operate via Satellite, over the SEACOM telephone cables, and by H.F., V.H.F. and Tropospheric Scatter with other points. Direct circuits are worked to some 28 countries. Automatic relays are provided where necessary. About 16,000 telegrams are handled every day in the Telegraph Control Centre.
94. In order to handle the increased volume of telegraph traffic a computer was installed during 1969. The computer can store 130,000,000 telegraph characters and by the end of 1969 was handling 2,000,000 messages a month. Besides the public telegraph network, the Message Switching Computer also handles switching for several airline signals
centres.
15