20
buildings, both for power plant and operating, the masts, transmitting and receiving aerials, and lighting and water-distilling plants, are intact, and said to be in all respects serviceable. We estimate that an expenditure of about £20.000 would suffice to render Windhuk an excellent valve station in the Imperial scheme, and we recommend that the Government of the Union of South Africa be advised to employ it, pending future developments of wireless telegraphy, for this purpose.
If the South African Government agrees to this proposal we would urge that Windhuk station, which can be ready much before any other valve station, be completed as soon as possible, in order that experiments in communicating with the Cairo are station may begin early next year. These experiments might well prove very instructive as regards the whole Imperial system.
Experience will show what subsidiary services, working with the three main stations of this African north and south route, are required, and they can be erected without difficulty, and equipped with valve transmission of power suitable to the distances to be covered. Communication between Cairo and Baghdad, less than 800 miles, would doubtless be needed at once.
This chain of stations from England to the Cape would, in our opinion, be able to handle efficiently and expeditiously the official and commercial traffic to be expected.
37. We next recommend that all the remaining Imperial stations be of the valve The first would be erected in transmitting and receiving type we have outlined. England, and on a site not more than 5 miles from the main transmission line of an Electricity Authority, if such can be found suitable for a wireless installation. This may possibly be near Melksham, in Wiltshire, but it would be necessary to form a small committee consisting of a wireless expert, a geologist, and representatives of the Electricity Commission and the Woods and Forests, to select the site and decide This accordingly whether the wireless station should purchase or generate its current. station would communicate duplex with a station to be erected in Egypt, and this station again with a station at Poona or whatever site was found to be most suitable in India.
The Indian station would communicate with a station to be erected at Singapore, where the traffic would branch, part going north to a station at Hongkong, and part southward to a station situated in the north of Australia, say, at Port Darwin,or on the west coast, not further south than Perth.
That is, the route England-Egypt-India-Far East-Australia would be served by six valve stations, and would be entirely independent of the route England-Egypt- East Africa-South Africa, although of course the arc and valve stations in England and Egypt would be able to assist each other in handling traffic when one was crowded and the other temporarily free.
We realise that it might soon be necessary to duplicate the valve stations in Egypt and India, but we do not think this would be required by the traffic at first, and the delay of a year or two would, in our opinion, have the great advantage of enabling it to be seen whether ar increase in the power of valves, or in the rate of high-speed signalling, would not meet the growth of traffic, rendering unnecessary the building of more stations. For the traffic it is reasonable to anticipate at the present time we feel confident that the plan here outlined will provide prompt and regular facilities.
38. We now set out the capital cost and annual charges (the Leafield-Cairo service being already provided) of the Imperial wireless scheme recommended.* These
would be as follows:-
Capital Cost.
Annual Charges.
21
Of the above capital sum, £853,000 would be payable by the Imperial Government, £185,000 by the Indian Government, £185,000 by the Australian Government, and £20,000 by the Government of the Union of South Africa,
Of the above annual charges, £268,000 would be payable by the Imperial Government, £59,000 by the Indian Government, £60,000 by the Australian Govern- hent, and £38,000 by the South African Government.
It will have been noted that the annual charges include interest at 6 per cent. on capital and complete amortisation, within a proper period, of all buildings and plant. This is as requested in our terms of reference.
39. We proceed, as further requested, to examine the probable amount of traffic and revenue that may be expected from each station.
Any estimate of the amount of traffic which would be carried must in the nature of things be highly speculative. In the recent arbitration proceedings with the Marconi Company, in respect of the cancelled contract of 1913, the Post Office put forward certain estimates based on the assumptions that the traffic on the principal routes concerned, which increased by some 150 per cent. during the war, would materially decrease during the next few years, and that the wireless service would attract some 15 per cent. of the total traffic. As a matter of fact, however, the traffic so far shows little or no tendency to decrease, and although the cable companies still expect a falling off there seems good reason to think the diminution will be less than had been expected, and that after a few years it will be made good by natural growth. In our calculations we have assumed that the average traffic during the next few years will be about five-sixths of the 1918 traffic. Further, the service we propose should be considerably better than that contemplated by the Post Office-Marconi Contract, seeing that there would be two separate lines of communication from the United Kingdom to South Africa and India respectively, instead of a service (as proposed in 1913) dependent upon a single line of communication between England and Egypt. In these circumstances, and in view of the continued congestion of the cables, we think it not unreasonable to suppose that the wireless service will attract 20 per cent. of the commercial, social and press traffic, in addition to a considerable amount of Government traffic. We have assumed that the rates payable by the public on the wireless routes would be three-fourths of the existing cable rates, which have recently in several cases been substantially reduced. The Government traffic may, we think, be credited to the wireless service at the actual rates now charged for it on the cables.
40. On these bases, and making a suitable allowance for retranamission (that is, the combined operation of receiving and sending) as compared with the single operation of sending or receiving, the annual load and revenue of the various stations (omitting the Leafield-Cairo service) during the first years of working are estimated roughly, since a more accurate forecast is impossible, as follows:-
India
English station
Cairo station..
Singapore
Hongkong
Australia
East Africa,
South Africa..
Words per annum.
Revenue.
£
7,000,000
50,000
10,500,000
60,0-0
9,000,000
55,000
6,000,000
40,000
1,500.000
25,000
3,600,000
40,000
2,000,000
30,000
1,500,00
25,000
325,000
English station Cairo station... Poona station
Singapore station Hongkong station Australian station Nairobi station Windhuk station
Totals
F
£
113,000
39,000
185,000
$7,000
185,000
59,000
185,000
60,000
185,000
50,000
1*5.000
60,000
185,000
52,000
20,000
38,000
1,243,000
425,000
• The charges are arrived at generally in the same way as those for the England-Egypt-India service, and where it is anticipated traffic will be for the present small, as at Hongkong, Nairobi and Windhuk, we have thought it fair to assume a reduction in operating costs of 60 per cent., and an equivalent economy in fuel.
over.
It should, of course, be understood that the above words are counted several times The actual amount of traffic passing over the Imperial routes on the above basis would be from 9,000,000 to 10,000,000 words. After the opening years an aunual increase of 5 per cent. per annum may reasonably be assumed.
Of the above revenue, £205,000 would be receivable by the Imperial Government, £55,000 by the Indian Government, £40,000 by the Australian Government, and £25,000 by the South African Government.
This is,
41. No mention has hitherto been mule of communication with Canada. of course, of the first importance in an Imperial wireless scheine, but definite proposals
[3569]
E
502
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.