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1010
xirx. COMMUNICATIONS OF SWEDEN.
For the erection and maintenance of the telegraph and telephone
nets Sweden is divided into 6 line-districts, in the hands of 6
line-directors. In 1902, 700 men were employed during the winter months,
and about 900 men during the summer months for erection and repairs.
The Telegraph Department has its own workshops in Stockholm for
the manufacture and repair of telegraph and telephone parts, the number
of hands (in 1902) being about 234.
6. TELEPHONE SERVICE.
Sweden has always stood her ground with other countries, in
regard to the technics of the telegraph system just described, but, from
one reason or another, it has never reached any high standpoint in
extension and use of the telegraph. But as to the telephone, Sweden
has not only adopted all the improvements made in the system — in
many cases originating them herself — but, in a quantitative respect,
has effected such a development that the telephone system in Sweden
has for many years been of greater extent, relatively to the population,
than that of any other country in the world.
Sweden’s superiority in this respect was for a long time very decided. During
the last few years, however, the growth of the telephone has not been so great here
as during previous decades. It is true that the state telephone has been extended,
but this has greatly been occasioned by the purchase of private nets, besides which
all development of private telephone activity outside Stockholm and its environs
has ceased. In consequence, a couple of countries have gained upon Sweden in
respect to the relative number of telephone apparatus, and possibly is Sweden
now distanced by the United States.
At the close of 1903, there were in Sweden about 103,000 telephone
apparatus in use, or about 198 for every ten thousand inhabitants.
As the figures for other countries are one or two years older, it cannot
be safely determined whether Sweden still occupies the first place, but
it may be said with certainty that it competes with the foremost, and
that most other countries exhibit figures which are far below the
Swedish. The average figures for Europe scarcely amount to 25
apparatus per ten thousand inhabitants, and even Great Britain and Ireland
and Germany, which possess widely extended telephone communications,
come to but about 60, or less than one third of that in Sweden.
The telephone service in our country commenced in the form of
private telephone companies, of which, however, the greater number were
persuaded to sell their lines to the State after it had itself begun to
set up telephones. The largest of the private companies, or the
Stockholm General Telephone Co., Ltd., still remains, however, within its
domain, a competitor of, and one fully as strong as the State telephone
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