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Show Telephone Co. Carried Out $10 Million Improvement Program in Utah in '54 A bering system at the time of the dial conversion in April 1954. Work is under way on a major long distance line expansion project pro-ject for the southeast part of the state into the great uranium country. coun-try. This project will be completed in June. Other long distance projects pro-jects are being carried out in order or-der to keep pace with the increasing increas-ing requirements for more long distance service throughout the state. In 1954, Aaberg said that improved im-proved classes of service were provided pro-vided for about 35 customers every working day of the year. In 1955 it is expected that better classes of service will be provided for about 50 customers each working work-ing day this year. The Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph Company completed complet-ed an expansion and service improvement im-provement program costing about $10,000,000 during 1954, it was announced this week by Eric C. Aaberg, Utah general manager. It was the largest program in the history of the company's operations opera-tions in Utah, Mr. Aaberg said. Continuing into 1955, will be a construction program exceeding that of the past year, it was stated. Seven thousand two hundred additional telephones were added in Utah last year bringing the total to 234,000; also 11,200 customers cus-tomers were furnished a higher class of service. To care for the added growth which is forecast for 1955 and also to obtain improved im-proved classes of service for about 16,000 customers, the outside cable and wire work which will be done this year will exceed 1954 by 40 per cent. The Telephone Company with ; 3200 men and women is one of the largest employers in the State; the annual wage bill is about $11,-000,000 $11,-000,000 and the total tax payments pay-ments on operations in the State were over $3,000,000 last year. About 1,500,000 telephone calls are made each day by Utah people. peo-ple. A completely new exchange was established at Clearfield a"nd placed plac-ed in service last October. Other areas changed to dial service included Grantsville, Ephraim, Eph-raim, Hyrum and Smithfield, Tod Park near Tooele, Bauer, Stockton, Stock-ton, St. John and Clover. In Utah County the cities of Provo, Springville and Orem are in the process of being changed to dial service. These three cities will be in operation on April 17, 1955, and will mark the completion comple-tion of the largest dial project undertaken in the state since the Salt Lake Exchange went to dial in 1940. Three new buildings were erected in these cities and the total cost of the project, including includ-ing the dial equipment and new outside lines, will be about $3,-000,000. $3,-000,000. The final step in furnishing dial telephone service to all exchanges in the Salt Lake metropolitan area will be completed in September, Septem-ber, 1955, when Midvale and Bountiful Boun-tiful begin to operate on a dial basis. In September all telephone numbers num-bers in Salt Lake City and Holla-day Holla-day will be changed to include "prefix" names as part of the number. By September, therefore, all telephones in the Salt Lake metropolitan area will be dial operated op-erated and will have a uniform telephone numbering system. The telephone numbers in Murray were changed to conform to this num- |
