Independent Companies01

 

WAUPACA REPUBLICAN

June 11, 1897

 

NOT DISTURBED

The Independent Telephone Company and the Makers of Telephones do not worry about the Decision

 

            The independent telephone companies are so numerous and so many new lines and exchanges are being put in throughout the United States that they have strength enough to combat the Bell power which is seeking to prolong their monopoly on the Berliner patent fourteen years longer.  The new companies have cheapened telephone rentals and tolls to such an extent that the people are in no mood to allow the Bell people to have absolute and sole control of the telephone business, for they know if the Bell people succeed in destroying competition that up will go the prices again and the prices which the Bell received for over sixteen years is something the people would not want to stand again.  And even now, in cities where the Bell has full control the prices have decreased but little.  The Standard telephone company in Madison say they do not care what the decision is in regard to the Berliner patent, their telephones, which are the same as used by the Badger and Wolf River companies, do not infringe at all on the Blake or Berliner telephone.  It is a French invention and as much different as light is from darkness, except of course it requires electricity to carry the sound over the wires.

                                                            STILL LOWER RATES

            Miss Florence Bailey, the young lady in charge of the Badger exchange, says the company has authorized her to make contracts for $1 per month for both business or residence phones in this city.  This is the same as charged by the Wolf River people at Weyauwega and New London.  In view of this it is learned that a number of new subscribers have already booked their orders for phones.  The Wolf River company is extending its lines from Royalton to Manawa, Symco and Big Falls and expect to make a circuit of the county with their wires as fast as they can do so.

                                                THE TELEPHONE SITUATION

the Evening Wisconsin editorially said Monday:

            The subscribers of the Independent telephone companies are in no immediate danger of prosecution for infringement ….. (incomplete article)