The system goes live on 12th June 1975 and is heralded as a ‘technological space age’ development. The system started in 1899 with only 9 subscribers and demand has steadily increased. In 1975 there are 7000 users. This is the last manual telephone exchange in East Anglia. Planning for systems generally takes 14 years but Braintree’s has only taken nine years to complete. 4000 customers’ phones were tested prior to the changeover. The new system will be modern and fault free.