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In the first year of the Taisho era (1912), only one in 60 Tokyo residents subscribe to service, an extremely low rate. Calling volumes, however, continue to rise. Compared to an average of nine calls per day in London or New York, each Tokyo subscriber makes an average of 20 calls. Many simply tell the corner greengrocer that they have urgent business, and use the phone to take care of it then and there. The result is that switchboard work is very intense, and there are frequent delays and misconnections. As a result, the telephone gets a poor reputation and switchboard operators feel the brunt of public dissatisfaction.
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