COMMUNICATIONS
During 1954, the Company's main exchange in the Eastern area was extended by 2,400 lines of automatic equipment and now serves 9,000 subscribers. An exchange serving the Quarry Bay area was also extended and now serves 600 subscribers. A small automatic exchange was established to serve the rural community at Shatin in the New Territories.
Considerable progress was made during the year in the construction of the following new exchanges:
Cameron Road, Kowloon
Peak Exchange, Hong Kong
Tsun Wan (in the New Territories)
5,400 lines.
1,000 lines.
400 lines.
All these exchanges are due for completion early in
1955.
Further extensions to the Central and East Exchanges were planned during the year and orders for equipment were placed in the United Kingdom. Further progress was made in the extension of existing underground cable networks in the Colony.
Meteorological Services
The Royal Observatory, which is a separate Government department, provides weather services for the general public, shipping, aviation and the armed forces. The main forecasting office is located at Kai Tak Airport, while the Observatory itself remains the centre for storm warnings,
storm warnings, synoptic observations, climatology and research. The department does not control an extensive network of observing stations and the efficiency of its forecasting services depends very largely on the reception of adequate weather informa- tion from other countries and from ships and aircraft in
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