Line, Neutral, Earth is generally the commonly used terminology for a single phase supply. When describing a controlling switch the 'line' is the power in and the 'load' is the switched wire.

Local subsidiaries of foreign companies here were quite often granted autonomy provided that the bikkies were coming in each week. Stromberg Carlson, an American company, was a mid-level manufacturer here and each model sold here looked nothing like anything produced by their parent company. The structure of ITT and Western Electric before it was a bit more complex - STC Australia was a division of STC in the UK, which was in turn a division of Western Electric in the US.

On the subject of STC, I saw something very odd on Youtube the other night. A Spanish telephone made by ITT's Spanish subsidiary, Citesa. It is practically identical to the rental telephones made in Australia by both STC and AWA for at least 15 years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE6TTzhivLY.

Later Australian versions of this phone had pulse pushbutton dialling and then later a choice of pulse and tone dialling.

Below is a link showing the Australian version.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyhPnOGNwVU.

Here is a 800 series style phone from Argentina.

http://russelljohnsonimports.com/component/virtuemart/details/49/17/vintage-telephones/t-8-ivory-phone-from-the-1960's.

This poses the question: Is the style an Australian design, or not?

I've answered my own question.

According to internet sources the 800 series was based on a design from Bell Telephones in Antwerp, Belgium.

The other question is how AWA got in on the act. As far as I can see, STC made the dials used in both STC and AWA phones and possibly other parts too. Was AWA needed to supply other parts or just to top up STC's capacity to make the phone in large numbers.