Post_Office_1972-1973 — Page 27

telegraph channel and one radiotelephone channel were opened to Peking, China.

92. Installation of a computerized telex exchange was completed in April 1972. This new exchange with a capacity of 4,000 circuits en- ables the subscriber to keyboard-select the destination number from his own telex machine on automatic routes.

93. On 1st May, 1972, the minimum charge to nearly all destina- tions on automatic routes was reduced from a three-minute to a one- minute basis. The computerized exchange also enabled the internal telex system to become fully automatic.

94. The number of telex subscribers as at 31st March, 1973, was 1,896, which represents an increase of 417 subscribers or 28.2 per cent over that at 31st March, 1972.

95. The outward international telex traffic for the year ended 31st March, 1973, totalled 3,650,487 minutes, which is a 74.2 per cent increase over that of the previous year. Inward traffic rose by 51.2 per cent to 3,155,759 minutes, and transit traffic was 1,341,362 minutes.

96. On 6th March, 1973, the Hong Kong-Macau telex service was introduced. This 24-hour service is manual; connections are available through Cable and Wireless telex switchboard operators.

97. In 1972-73 the international switched data service was expanded to include three more countries: New Zealand, Japan and Singapore. The service is now available to a total of seven countries.

98. The 1972-73 outward international telephone traffic rose by 28.7 per cent to 7,285,759 minutes and inward traffic increased by 24.5 per cent over that of 1971-72 to 8,394,614 minutes.

99. Outward public telegraph traffic dropped in 1972-73 to 1,454,855 messages, which is a 4.16 per cent decrease compared with the 1971-72 figure. Inward traffic remained at the same level, totalling 1,753,840 messages. The number of inland telegrams dropped by 19.5 per cent to 7,018, whilst transit telegrams totalled 1,370,228.

100. The International television transmission service showed some interesting statistics. On 29th March, 1973, the longest single pro- gramme transmitted from Hong Kong since the introduction of the service in 1970 was recorded. It lasted 2 hrs. 18 mins.

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