ENG-1963 — Page 344

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COMMUNICATIONS

increased. Relay services were opened via Hong Kong for Macau/ Alaska, Seoul/New Zealand, Thailand/Australia, Thailand/ Colombo and Taiwan/New Zealand. A new service was established with Kotabaru, West Irian and more channels were put into service where demands were apparent.

More telegraph circuits have been leased to the public for com- mercial correspondence. Forty such circuits are now on lease.

Roughly 43,000 printergrams were handled each month. These are telegrams delivered to the addressees by teleprinter instead of by messenger, and those filed by teleprinter instead of being handed in at post offices. The local delay was very much reduced.

On a busy day, about 240 outgoing telegrams were accepted by telephone for transmission, and 100 incoming telegrams tele- phoned to the addressees before the copies were delivered. This phonogram service is also growing in popularity. It contributes to the reduction of local delay and affords a special public facility especially after office hours and on holidays. International tele- grams, inland telegrams, radiotelegrams, phototelegrams, deskfax, press broadcast, meteorological broadcast and the technical main- tenance of the Government department VHF telephone-com- munication system were operated satisfactorily and with normal efficiency.-

Telephones. Telephone service in the Colony is provided by the Hong Kong Telephone Company Limited, a public company operating under a franchise from Government. In addition to the internal service the company, in conjunction with Cable and Wireless Limited, provides services to most countries and to ships in the harbour and at sea. The Telephone Company's system, which is fully automatic, comprises some 170,000 stations served from nine major exchanges and a number of satellite exchanges. Rentals are charged on a flat rate basis.

In order to meet the demand for telephone service, one new major exchange unit was completed during the year, while three further major units are scheduled to be brought into service in 1964 with a further major unit scheduled for completion late in 1965. In addition, the central exchange will be replaced during 1964 by one of an ultimate capacity more than double that of the existing exchange.