 Adequate telecommunications were essential to link the airfields of far north Queensland and the fighting fronts in New Guinea and beyond, with the command centres in Townsville, Brisbane and the southern capitals.The wartime upgrading of telecommunications from Townsville to Thursday Island was a dedicated defence facility, but was linked directly to the 1880s overland telegraph.An R Type Carrier System, developed in Australia during World War II to cater for pockets of telecommunications traffic congestion, particularly in places where a telephone carrier was not available to supply a channel for a voice frequency system, was installed along the old overland telegraph route from Mount Surprise to Cape York.