Summit County Labor News

Direct Long Distance Dialing
Planned for Akron in Fall

A record-breaking $5,776,000 program for telephone expansion and service improvements, including the inauguration of Direct Long Distance Dialing this fall, was announced this week by the Ohio Bell Telephone Company.

Cost of the direct dialing installation, which will place more than 10 million telephones from the eastern seaboard as far west as St. Louis within dialing range of Akron, has been set at $1,500,000. The new service becomes effective next November 17.

Ohio Bell President John A. Greene made the company's plans known as he met with newsmen prior to his annual supervisory meeting at the Sheraton-Mayflower Hotel Wednesday during which he reviewed the past year and outlined future objectives to more than 400 management employees from this section of the state.

Ohio Bell's 1957 construction program here will exceed last year's by a quarter of a million dollars. The total amount spent for telephone expansion and service improvements here during the past 10 years now totals $33,600,000.

Among the major projects slated for completion during 1957 are building additions at the Meadowbrook and Valley exchanges costing approximately $55,000. Additional dial equipment at these two exchanges as well as at the Blackstone, Midlake, Parkway, Sherwood, Stadium, University and Walbridge exchanges will require an expenditure of $350,000.

Mr. Greene pointed out that the need for extensive building and equipment additions has been brought about not only by the increased demand for basic service, but by the desire of more and more individual subscribers for the latest refinements obtainable in telephone service.

District Commercial Manager G. C. Ruggles said that more than 9,000 Akron subscribers last year requested and received higher grades of service than they previously had. Among Akron's residential subscribers, for example, 44 per cent today have individual lines. Ten years ago, only 12 per cent had private lines.

Extra telephones, too, have been growing in popularity. Today, 23 per cent of all residence telephone users in Akron have at least one extension telephone. In 1946 only 4 per cent had more than one instrument in the home.

Growth of the Akron area is brought out by the fact that over 9,000 more telephones were added here last year, bringing the total to 150,000. This represents an increase of nearly 88,000 telephones here during the past 10 years.

More outside cable to take care of this year's anticipated growth will cost nearly $2,000,000, and over $1,800,000 will be needed for telephone instruments, PBX switchboards for business concerns and other telephone accessories.

Local and long-distance calling also has been on a rapid rise in the Akron area. Local calls dialed here last year averaged over 900,000 a day, almost 100,000 a day more than five years ago. Out-of-town calls placed here currently average over 23,000 a day, an increase of about 6,500 a day over the 1951 figure.