§ Mr. John Pageasked the Postmaster-General what steps he is taking to improve the telephone service in the Greater London area, in view of the fact that in order to get three separate numbers on the Avenue, Abbey and Colindale exchanges between 11.30 a.m. and 1 p.m. on 28th January the hon. Member for Harrow, West, had to dial 10 times on different telephones in the House of Commons to get the three numbers to ring.
§ Mr. StonehouseThe Post Office is taking all the new telephone exchange equipment that the contractors can supply for the home market. Some £20 49W million worth of this is being installed annually in the Greater London area both to expand the system and to replace some of the older, more fault-prone, exchanges. A portion of this new equipment is of the latest electronic type which is inherently much more reliable than the existing equipment. We are also installing improved automatic testing equipment in all exchanges to identify faulty apparatus before it affects the service. The failures from the House of Commons on 28th January were due to a faulty switching unit used to route traffic from Whitehall to the exchanges mentioned. This fault was found during routine test, but could have been found and repaired earlier had the call failures been reported.