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Show REDUCTION IN PHOONE RATES WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 Sweeping reductions in long distance and toll telephone rates by- the adoption of a basic rate for night service up to midnight and one-fourth the day rale after that hour, wore announced today by Postmaster General Burleson. They become effective next January 21. The now rates were recommended in the first report of tho committee on rate standardization and Mr. Burleson's Burle-son's statement said their effect Is to equalize the toll and long-distance charges over the country, "removing disparities and preferences and providing pro-viding a scientific basis for futuro reductions contemplated as unification of ftelephone and telegraph wires proceeds." pro-ceeds." Cheap Night Service "A night service rate," said the statement, "which is one-half the day rate, is established between 8:30 and 12 p. m. Between midnight and 4:30 a. m., the night rate is one-fourth tho day rate. These are greater reductions reduc-tions in night rates than have ever been made In any country and doubtless doubt-less will be extensively used, especially especial-ly for social and family purposes. A person might talk from San Francisco to New York for about ?4 whereas the day rate is approximately $16. "A aUition-to-stallon service Is established es-tablished Buch ats now exists in the, balance of the world, that Is when a connection Is established with a man's house or office, the opportunity to ' converse provided and the station-to-statlon rate, which Ib the basic rate, ' applies and Is payable whether the ' particular persons desired responds or not. This rate, up to twenty-four miles, is at the rate of five cents for ' six miles and for greater distances five cents for each eight miles or about , six and one-fourth mills a mile. The distance is computed by air line methods meth-ods and not by pole line or public . highways. The airline distances are I commonly about 100 miles when the others would run 150 miles, i It is stated by the committee that more than sixty varieties of toll rates have existed In the United States up to the present time. The time effect of the uniform or baBic rate in the station-to-station service is to reduce , or not affect about seventy per cent of the rates though necessarily slight-1 ly raising about thirty per cent in the process of standardization. ! "It requires about two and a half times as much work to establish con- , nectlon with a particular person than the station-to-station service. Hither- ' to the rates have been the same for I both kinds of services, nothing being paid, however great the services performed per-formed on the failure of the telephone Institution to secure the particular person. The particular-person service has also been used to defraud the government gov-ernment out of Its toll revenues. De- signing person employ codes under I which, although the desired telephone1 is reached, the particular person is said not to be there but words of ex- I planatlon given from his 'phono an- J swer all the purposes of the call under ' the code arrangement. "The particular-person service is not discontinued, but the rate is -so modified modi-fied as to prevent these abuses and compensate the telephone service in part for the extra expense of labor and plant involved, and a charge of 25 per cent of the station-to-station rate is made for such service, when the particular person ia secured and a report charge of 25 per cent of the station-to-station rate Is made when the house or office telephone is obtained ob-tained and" bla whereabouts or refusal to talk is reported. "In many large sections of the country coun-try the smallest toll rate has not been less than fifteen cents. Under the new scheme for short distances the rates are reduced to five cents and ten cents. For the cheapest form of service tho person can talk five minutes as compared com-pared with three minutes now, or in Borne cases only two minutes or one minute. Free toll aroaa where the exchange ex-change rate was designed to cover the free service or a lower charge therefor there-for are not affected by this order." on |