Abstract
IN Electrical Communications of October 1938, statistics of the telephone and telegraph services of the world are given. The telephone development of the world by countries is first discussed, the figures taken being for January 1937. North America possesses nearly 54 per cent of the total number of telephones in the world, the United States alone possessing nearly 50 per cent, and having 14.4 per cent per 100 of the population. South America possesses 2 per cent of the total and nearly 1 per cent per 100 of the population. The whole of Europe possesses 36.5 per cent of the total world number and has an average of 2.4 per 100 of the population. Great Britain and Northern Ireland, France, Germany, Italy and Russia have 7.5, 4.0, 9.25, 1.5 and 2.6 per cent of the total world telephones and 5.9, 3.5, 5.1, 1.3 and 0.6 per 100 of the population. Asia possesses nearly 4.6 per cent of the world's total, of which about three quarters belong to Japan. Africa possesses about 0.9 per cent of the world's total, of which more than half belong to the Union of South Africa. Oceania possesses nearly 2.3 per cent, Australia having 1.5 per cent. The number of telephones per 100 of the population is also given for large cities. Washington and San Francisco head the list each with 37. Stockholm comes next with 35. Then New York with 22, London with 16, Paris with 15, Berlin with 13, Rome with 8, Tokyo with 3.9, Moscow with 3.5 and Shanghai with 3.4. In Canada, Montreal with more than a million inhabitants has 16 telephones per 100 of the population, and Toronto with more than three quarters of a million inhabitants has more than 25 telephones per hundred. In 1936, the total number of ‘wire’ communications, that is, of telephone conversations and telegrams per capita in Canada was 222, of which only 1 was a telegram. In the United States it was 211, 1 being a telegram, and in Great Britain and Northern Ireland it was 44, the number of telegrams sent per capita being a little greater than 1.
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Telephone and Telegraph Statistics of the World. Nature 143, 674 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/143674b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/143674b0