Mid-July will mark the end of the telegram’s impressive 144-year career as an active means of communication. The final telegraph will be sent from somewhere in India.
Mid-July will mark the end of the telegram’s impressive 160 plus years as an active means of communication.
The final telegraph will be sent from somewhere in India.
Western Union in the United States abandoned the technology 7 years ago.
The Indian telecom company BSNL has decided it’s no longer financially viable to offer the service as daily transmissions only number about 5 thousand. The annual losses are estimated at 23 million dollars.
The company’s general manager also acknowledges that with the capabilities of smartphones, the telegraph has become redundant.
In the telegraph’s golden age in India – the mid 1980’s – approximately 60 million messages were sent and received each year. Then, there were 45 thousand offices, compared to the 75 that exist today.
The first telegraph message was sent from Washington, D.C. in 1844 and the technology went on to revolutionize long-distance communications.
The desire to send quick messages over long distances has been pursued by many civilizations. The Chinese, Ancient Egyptians, and Greeks enlisted smoke signals and drum beats. Semaphore, the telegraph’s predecessor, became all the rage in the late 18th century.
