TRANSATLANTIC TELEPHONY 193 



months, individual calls have been delayed due to the fact that at 

 the time they were ofifered, atmospheric conditions made it impossible 

 to use the transatlantic channel. As the business develops, it will 

 doubtless be necessary to adopt special measures for evening the 

 flow of business throughout the period that the transatlantic channel 

 is open for service. At such time as traffic develops to a point where 

 some artificial leveling of the load is required, we would expect this 

 service to involve advance bookings and longer delays than we are 

 accustomed to here in the United States in our internal services. 

 Pending the availability of other transatlantic channels through the 

 use of short wave lengths or otherwise, I do not believe that this 

 type of service would necessarily be seriously objectionable or deterrent 

 to business development. As a matter of fact, a good many calls 

 are now filed in advance. 



Differences in the English language as spoken in London and New 

 York became evident as soon as our New York operators were placed 

 in communication with the operators in London. Each group ex- 

 pressed some concern as to what the other was doing to their lan- 

 guage. I believe the London operators were inclined to think the 

 broken English spoken by the telephone operators in Holland was 

 sometimes easier to understand than New York City English. 



The self-confidence of Americans evidenced itself in the considerable 

 number of calls filed for the nobility, cabinet ministers and other 

 men in the public eye. The fact that most of these calls were accepted 

 by the persons called, indicated their willingness to play the game. 

 Other evidences of this same confident attitude were the suggestions 

 from individuals that they be given a free call so that we could capi- 

 talize on the publicity that they would put into their advertising. 

 Others advised us after using the service that, for a consideration, 

 they would allow their names to be used in our publicity material. 



I have spoken of some of the operating problems in setting up the 

 transatlantic service and of our experience in handling this service 

 since its inauguration about a year ago. The operating and service 

 arrangements have worked out satisfactorily. The service as a whole 

 has been considerably better than we had anticipated. The volume 

 of business is small but the business now being handled is in line with 

 our general experience in the development of long distance usage. 

 In a situation of this kind, full consideration should be given to the 

 fact that, generally speaking, potential traffic volumes decrease with 

 distance. Telephone service like the transatlantic is a new means of 

 communication. It will not only take time for potential users to 

 become convinced that satisfactory communication can be carried on 

 13 



