§ Mr. WELLOCKasked the Postmaster-General if he will consider the possibility of introducing into the telephone service in this country and to places abroad a system by which telephone users can book their long-distance calls to the person to whom they want to speak, with an assurance that they will not have to pay the full charge for a three-minute conversation if the person wanted cannot be found and brought to the telephone?
§ Mr. LEES-SMITHMy attention has been called to the difficulty that subscribers who make long distance calls frequently find that the person with whom they want to get into touch is not available so that the purpose of the call is not achieved. In order to meet this difficulty I propose to institute as an optional facility a new service of "personal" calls. The object is that the subscriber who makes a long distance call can if he wishes, by paying a small additional fee called the "personal charge," secure that unless the call is completed with the person named or with a substitute accepted by the caller, the "personal charge" only and not the trunk fee shall be paid. The new facility will be introduced on the Inland Trunk and Toll routes on 1st August next, and1128W in most of the Anglo-Continental telephone services, by agreement which has been reached with the foreign administrations concerned, on 1st October. Full particulars will be supplied to the public Press.