The Scandinavian countries have gone further than any other European community in the development of tele phone service. In 1880 the International Bell Telephone Co. of New York secured local franchises for the Norwegian cities of Christiania and Drammen. In the following year local telephone companies undertook the establishment of exchanges in other cities and a competitive system was even opened for service in Christiania. In 1886 the two systems were consolidated and the Bell exchange in Drammen was later acquired by a local company. The telephone soon came to hold much the same place in Nor wegian rural life as it does in the sparsely settled districts of America, and although the government did not encourage the con struction of lines which would compete with the government tele graphs, the development of telephone networks throughout the rural districts went on apace. Ten years after the introduction of the telephone into Norway it had extended to almost every village and even the small towns were surrounded by lines reaching far into the open country. This remarkable development was secured by local enterprise, independent telephone companies being formed in almost every town or village, and in this respect the Norwegian development was a marked contrast to that obtained in France and Italy. The construction of long distance lines in Norway was finally undertaken by large stock companies and ultimately the state took up the policy of acquiring the more important local telephone systems upon the expiration of their respective fran chises. The greater part of the telephone business in Norway, particularly in the larger cities, is now operated by the government.
In Sweden, too, the telephone has attained a higher degree of development than in most European countries. The International Bell Telephone Company opened exchanges in 1881 in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmo. A couple of years later mutual tele phone associations were established in many rural communities throughout Sweden and the Stockholm General Telephone Com pany was established under the leadership of enterprising Swedish engineers to compete with the Bell Company. The two systems were finally consolidated ; but later telephone competition was renewed in Stockholm, the government opening an exchange system to compete with that of the General Telephone Company.
In 1918 the government acquired the company's system and the considerable duplication which had resulted from the com petitive situation in Stockholm has since been eliminated. The Swedish capital, however, remains the best developed city, from a telephone standpoint, in the world outside of the United States. In Denmark the telephone was introduced and developed by private enterprise and in the year 1935 more than 95% of the Danish telephones were owned and operated by private concerns. Denmark has the highest development in number of telephones per roo population of any country in Europe.
Spain entered upon a new era of telephone develop.. ment in 1924 when a concession was granted to the National Telephone Company of Spain, a subsidiary of the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation of New York, for the development of a nation-wide system to supersede the pre-existing governmental and privately owned telephone services which had attained only a relatively limited development. The new company entered energetically upon the task of providing Spain with an up-to-date telephone system, the equipment being of Spanish manufacture so far as conditions permit. Within a very short time after the concession was granted, telephone communication was established across the Straits of Gibraltar by submarine cable connecting the Spanish wire system with telephones installed in the zone of Spanish military occupation in Morocco. Subsidiaries of the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation also operate telephone systems in Rumania, Cuba, Porto Rico, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Peru and China.
Telephone development in the rest of the civilized world may be summarized with the statement that while some sort of tele phone service is to be found almost everywhere, the facilities have attained a relatively high development in the English speak ing dominions of New Zealand and Australia. Japan has more telephones than any other country in Asia, and although the Japanese system suffered a severe setback in the destruction wrought by the disastrous earthquake of 1923, the opportunity was being taken in rebuilding to introduce thoroughly up-to-date and efficient equipment.