CALLERS at the telephone exchange on Speedwell Street in March, 1991, were given numbers with the help of a new computer system.
British Telecom (BT) installed a computerised system which enabled operators to call up numbers on a screen at the press of a button.
The 24 directory enquiry terminals at the telephone exchange on Speedwell Street were directly linked to a computer in Kensington, London, which contained a record of the country's 23m subscribers.
The new machines meant that the operators only needed to key in an abbreviated form of the name and address of the person they were calling, to then be given a number on screen within one and half seconds.
BT said the installation of the new systems known as DAS, cuts the average time of call handling by 30 seconds, which made calls quicker by a quarter.
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