COMMUNICATIONS AND TRANSPORT
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switching centre, comprising six computer processors, which currently handle 3.5 million messages, or about 1,200 million characters, each month. To handle the increasing international telex traffic two telex exchanges are in operation serving more than 3,000 subscribers.
International telephone services to most overseas countries are provided by Cable and Wireless in conjunction with the Hong Kong Telephone Company. The international telephone exchange is equipped for 675 circuits.
The public telephone service within Hong Kong is provided by the Hong Kong Telephone Company, a public company operating under a franchise from the govern- ment. The telephone system is fully automatic, with a flat rate charging system allowing for an unlimited number of local calls, and consists of 52 exchanges serving almost one million telephone stations. -Exchange equipment ranges from electro- mechanical switching system to the latest design of common control semi-electronic apparatus. The telephone penetration of 23 stations per hundred population is the highest recorded in Asia, with the exception of Japan. Provision is made for a variety of systems required by the commercial sector and for a harbourphone service, which enables vessels entering the harbour to be connected to the telephone network within minutes of mooring.
Telephone services into the more remote rural areas are provided by the use of multiplexing, microwave and small carrier techniques. Planning and development is in hand to extend rural services and also to deal with the massive task of diverting 300,000 telephone circuits with the minimum of disruption for the first stage of the proposed underground railway system.