§ 18. Mr. Robert Cookeasked the Postmaster-General what proposals he has for reducing the number of call failures and faults in the telephone service.
§ Mr. MasonMost failures are caused by overloading. To remedy this, 12,000 468 trunk lines and 800 new exchanges and additions to exchanges will be added this year. We are now using automatic fault detectors to identify equipment liable to cause failures.
§ Mr. CookeIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that the average rate of failure is pretty considerable, and if the average rate is considerable the worst must be very bad? Will he keep on trying to remedy this?
§ Mr. MasonThat is why I said in my original reply that there is congestion and overloading, and this is particularly so in the hon. Gentleman's region. This will be reduced progressively over the next six months.
§ Mr. Stratton MillsDoes the right hon. Gentleman recall the document "Post Office Prospects" in which he said that dealing with faults in the year 1968–69 would be the dominant task? Is there any evidence that there has been an improvement?
§ Mr. MasonIt is being improved. I made a speech last week when opening "Telephone Fortnight", during which I gave an indication of this. Secondly, I am setting up several network co-ordination centres throughout the country to maintain general surveillance of the trunk network, to locate and identify weak spots and remedy them.