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Newspaper Page Text
HMMl w!i"iwBnwNis"iww Mi I If the city takes over the automatic plant with its 20,000 telephones, which it can do if the council is prevented from allowing the pending sale, or approving the sale already made, we will have assets of about $5,000,000 on which to issue 1)onds7 These bonds will finoa ready market in small denominations among the telephone users and the Chicago public and will furnish the money for extending the plant as fast as the work can be carried on. With automatic telephones we can get penny service one cent for three minutes' service. Just think what a saving this would mean. It is not a dream; it is an immediate possibility if we will go at it. Here is the general plan by which it will work out: Telephone Meters for Each Telephone. Each telephone has a meter that charges for each minute the service is used and the users of private telephones will get bills just as they do for gas or electricity, only the unit of charge is the minutes in this case. The meters charge only for outgoing calls, during the actual time of con versation. The average time of conversations is ninety seconds, so that a period of three minutes will in many cases pay for two calls when the same are short The meters are entirely automatic and are located at the telephones, where they can be watched by the user. Class of Service. . There will be but three classes of private service and there will be a base rate on each class. This base rate pays for having the telephone for incoming calls and the name in the directory, and the outward use of service is paid tor at the rate of one cent for each three minutes, the charge for each month being computed by dividing the total minutes since the last reading by three and multiplying by the rate per call which will be one cent after the average use of the tele-, phones amount to thirty minutes per day per telephone fpr the whole sys tem. That will be when about 100, 000 telephones have been installed. The three classes are as follows, with the base rates necessary to cover the "ready to serve charges": Individual line (secret service), $24 perrear. Two-party line, $15 per year. Four-party line, $9 per year. Private Exchanges. These will also be automatic, re quiring no expensive operators, and the subscribers will have the option of purchasing them outright and only paying $24 per year base rate on each outgoing trunk line to .11 per cent on the cost of their private systems, and in either case get unlimited local ser vice by paying $12 per year for each terminal. Each local or terminal has its own meter, which charges the trunk line use of that telephone when conversing with outside parties be yond the limits of the establishment. Public Service. " Public service will be rendered from telephones having coin boxes with slots for special tokens that can be sold two for five cents,' so as to allow a profit to those who provide the public with telephone con veniences. The public telephone sub scriber will be charged the regular service rate of one cent per call, based on the number of tokens col lected from the box. Income at One Cent Per Call. ""This is based on the present aver age traffic of the Bell telephones and is therefore conservative asa penny service estimate. Factors for Calculations Average calls per day, per tele phone 5y2 (present C. T. rate)y Number of telephones, 250,000. Rotes per call of three minutes' duration, 1 cent. 3