After the Second World War, the Oriental Telephone and Electric Company (OTEC) faced the challenging tasks of restoring the disrupted telephone system and meeting the rapid growth in demand for telephones. In 1947, orders were made for new automatic telephone switching equipment for 8,000 telephone lines, bringing the total number of lines to 18,860 and a telephone density of 1.6 telephones per 100 persons by 1950. In 1955, the government acquired OTEC and formed the Singapore Telephone Board.
