Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1920 edition. Excerpt:...of the telephones controlled by the Bell System wras particularly marked. In Montana, for example, the Bcl l Telephone System controlled less than half the telephones reported in 1912, while in 1917 it controlled four-fifths of them. In California, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, and West Virginia the proportion of telephones controlled by the Bell System was much greater in 1917 than in 1912. In some cases these increases were due to the consolidation with the Bell System of companies formerly under other ownership. In other cases the advance was due to the much more rapid expansion of the Bell System than that of the other systems. No decreases in the number of telepnones reported by the Bell System are recorded in any state for the decade 1907 to 1917 or for either of the five-year periods comprising it. A number of the states, however, show decreases for the decade in the number of telephones reported by the other systems, some of these decreases being particularly noticeable, as for example, those in Arizona, Maryland, and Utah. Telephones connected with the Bell System.--The census schedule used in 1912 contained an inquiry designed to determine the number of telephones on the wires of non-Bell companies that were connected with the Bell Telephone System for the exchange of traffic. So many telephones secured Bell service indirectly, however, that it was found practically impossible to obtain an accurate answer to this inquiry from the non-Bell companies, the data secured from them being at considerable variance with the number of such telephones which were reported by the Bell Telephone System as connected with its exchanges for telephone service. As the Bell System has better facilities for securing accurate data of this character, the inquiry...