Modernization of telephone communication and first automatic telephone exchanges in Western Siberia (1920-1940)

The article reviews the main directions ofdevelopment of telecommunication in Siberia, measures of reconstruction and rehabilitation of backward telephone services. Siberianphone took a secondary position among the other sub-sectors of communication. As a solution for the recovery of this type of communicationfrom recession modern automatic telephone exchanges were built. Pre-war five-year plans in Western Siberia were marked byrapid development of telecommunication. During this period, a large number of small departmental exchanges were built. The mainobjective of the recovery period was reconsolidation and preservation of telephone services. In the mid 1920s the USSR began to establishand release domestic station equipment and telephones. Until 1924 the Siberian phone service satisfied the needs of communicationonly within settlements, especially cities. Since 1924 there are intercity and rural telephone services. The first long-distance Siberianlines were not of good quality, as they were arranged on a telegraph wire, and fitted on the switches, borrowed from the urban telephonenetwork (UTN). Nevertheless, the discovery of long-distance communications was an important event for the Siberian city dwellers.The development of UTN increasingly revealed the need to replace manual telephone exchanges servicing with automatic telephoneexchange (ATE). In the years of industrialization, it was important not only to maintain high rates of telephones, but also to move to aqualitatively new level, due to the increased social and economic demands, as well as the rapid development of technology. In addition,the use of ATE allows solving one of the most important issues -implementing regionalization of urban telephone networks, and therebyreducing the amount of line structures by reducing the length of subscriber lines. The oldest Novosibirsk ATE was built in late April andput into operation May 15, 1931, which was 4 years before similar stations started in Sverdlovsk and Perm. Novosibirsk ATE was the firststation, which was completely made in Soviet factories. The adoption of domestic industry production of manual and automatic telephoneexchanges constituted the basis for the development of local telephone networks in Siberia. For the first five-year period the length of telegraphand telephone networks in Western Siberia increased by 50%; a new line of direct communication with Moscow and Ural was putinto operation; the telephone network covered 19% of village councils. Despite this, Tomsk automatic telephone service came to the universityonly after 17 years, in 1946. Thus, in spite of the plight of the communications industry, the high rate of telephones in the Siberian regionbrought a positive effect. In the mid 1920s in Western Siberia long-distance and rural telephone communications appeared and developed,and in the 1930s - 1940s local telephone networks were not only reconstructed, but also partly modernized.

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