electronic telephone sets coaxial cable systems - The history of ...

Harald Alexandersson In Memoriam
Harald Alexandersson died at his home
at Torremolinos, Spain, on January 31,
after recently attaining the age of 70
years.
Harald Alexandersson joined L M
Ericsson in 1928. He soon became engaged
in railway telephony and, during
the thirties, using a new principle, succeeded
in designing a new selective calling
telephone system which has since been
standardized by a number of railway administrations,
among which the Swedish.
The system is still being produced. After
a period as director at AGA Baltic AB,
Harald Alexandersson became President
Information service per
telephone
Information for telephone subscribers
can now be provided by special tape recorders,
the control equipment of which
has been designed by L M Ericsson.
The equipment is now ready for introduction
on the world market.
The information may consist of a general
news service, weather forecasts,
sports results, train running times , or
publicity announcements. The content
can be easily changed and the length of
message varied from 5 seconds to 5 minutes.
The equipment consists of rack-mounted
tape recorder units, distribution equipment
and control panel with microphone
for recording.
When a call from the telephone exchange
is received by the information
unit, the message is played back from the
tape recorder. At the end of the message
the tape is automatically wound back to
starting position.
Two tape recorders are placed on one
rack. When one tape recorder is connected
for playback, the other is connected for
recording. These functions can be switched
over from the control panel at any
time.
n
of Svenska Radioaktiebolaget in 1944. It
fell to his lot to solve the troublesome
problems of returning to civil production
after the end of the war. As from 1950
Harald Alexandersson was Departmental
Head and later Chief Engineer at LM
Ericsson. He was in charge of the work of
mechanical design within the telephone
exchange field. A number of new designs
saw the light of day under his management.
The item that is particularly associated
with the name of Harald Alexandersson
is the code switch. This switch,
which was designed at the end of the
fifties, has come into wide use in PBX's,
rural exchanges and also in the storedprogram-controlled
exchanges of AK.E
type. The code switch is probably one of
the most reliable switches that has been
produced.
Harald Alexandersson was an extremely
ingenious and imaginative designer. He
had a real talent for creation. He also
possessed a thorough general knowledge
of precision mechanics and electronics.
His contributions were therefore of great
value to L M Ericsson. Harald Alexandersson
really ennobled the work of design
to an engineering art.
We who worked with Harald Alexandersson
or followed his work have lost a
good friend and comrade. We were all
aware of the enthusiasm and joy in creation
which he radiated. We join with his
nearest relatives in expressing our regret
at his loss. Christian Jacobaeus
NEW BOOKS
• "Maintenance of L IVI Ericsson
Crossbar Exchanges in Rural City and
Transit Networks — Customer Findings"
is the title of a compilation of four articles
published in Ericsson Review during the
last two years.
The authors, representatives of telephone
administrations in Denmark, Tunisia,
the Netherlands and Yugoslavia,
confirm the many advantages attained
through the introduction of L M Ericsson's
Controlled Corrective Maintenance
(CCM) method.
• "Why Intercom?"— this question
is asked in the title of a new brochure on
internal telecommunication systems produced
by L M Ericsson Telematerial AB.
It presents the results of measurements
made by the company at four Swedish organizations.
The measurements show that each of
the 1,093 intercom telephones at these
organizations is used for no less than
3,000 calls per annum. The measurements
also show that the average length of an
intercom conversation is 42 seconds.
World telephone statistics
The total number of telephones in the
world increased during 1972 by 7.4 %
and, according to AT&T's latest annual
statistics "The World's Telephones", was
312.9 million at Jan. 1, 1973. The corresponding
increase in 1971 was 6.8%.
The average telephone density in the
world increased during 1972 from 7.8 to
8.2 telephone sets per 100 inhabitants.
During the last ten-year period the total
number of telephone sets in the world
has increased by 94.2 " H.
The telephone density per 100 inhabitants
on the various continents was on
January 1, 1973 (preceding year's figures
in brackets):
North America 61.3 (58.4)
Central America 3.4 (3.1)
South America 3.3 (3.3)
Europe 16.0 (14.8)
Africa 1.0 (1.0)
Asia, including the Asiatic parts of
Turkey and the Soviet Union 2.0 (1.8)
Oceania 29.4 (29.2)
The country with the highest telephone
density is the U.S.A. with 62.75 telephone
sets per 100 inhabitants, followed by
Sweden with 59.25, Switzerland 53.95,
Canada 49.98, New Zealand 44.61 and
Denmark 37.93.
Five small countries reported a telephone
density of more than one telephone
per two inhabitants.
Automatic traffic is accessible to
96.8 °/o of the world's telephone subscribers
and has been introduced on a
100 " i) basis in 64 countries.
International Conference on
Computer Communication
An International Conference on Computer
Communication (ICCC) is to be
held in Stockholm on August 12—14,
1974.
The host of the conference is the Swedish
Telecommunications Administration,
assisted by Swedish enterprises within the
computer and telecommunication field,
among which L M Ericsson.
A folder with information about the
conference is being distributed with this
issue of Ericsson Review.