The Rural Telephone 305 



neighbors, in order that the consolidated company may 

 secure a technical man the cost of whose services can be 

 apportioned among a sufficiently large number of sub- 

 scribers so that this charge will but slightly increase the 

 burden of each. 



"Very few of those who express dissatisfaction with the 

 increased expense of the telephone service which results 

 from the conditions indicated, stop to think of the reasons 

 for this increased cost of service, and of the increased value 

 which their telephones now possess. As the system has 

 grown, the investment has naturally become greater, and 

 inasmuch as the newer subscribers are located at points 

 more distant from the center of the group than were the 

 first, the investment in poles and wires for each subscriber 

 has become greater. So, too, the investment in the 

 switchboard becomes greater with the growth of the sys- 

 tem. A small switchboard for a hundred subscribers can 

 be installed for about $4 a subscriber, while for a thousand 

 subscribers such a board might easily cost $20 for each 

 subscriber. 



" Similar conditions exist with regard to the work of 

 operating the switchboard. The farmers at first do not 

 consider the fact that where there were 20 subscribers, 

 and each one could talk to but 19 others, the daily number 

 of calls from each subscriber was small. When the num- 

 ber increased to 300, each subscriber could reach 299 others, 

 so that the demand for telephone calls became greater. 

 The result was that with a small number of subscribers the 

 average farmer would resort to the telephone three times 

 a day. When he could reach 299 of his neighbors he might 

 call up 10 of those a day. This increased number of calls 



