[AGCW] Dot, dash, full stop: Telegram service ends July 15

[Juergen Wagner]

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Telegram service ends July 15

The Hindu reports come July 15, 2013 one of India’s oldest communication
services - the telegram - will become history.

Financial constraints have forced the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd to wind
up the telegraphic service, which would be remembered mainly as a
historically inexpensive but relatively quick method of sending alerts
related to births, deaths and emergency situations.

In India, the first telegraph message was transmitted live through
electrical signals between Calcutta (now Kolkata) and Diamond Harbour, a
distance of about 50 km, on November 5, 1850; and the service was opened
for the general public in February 1855.

1927 saw the first Radio-telegram system between the UK and India.

Over the years, the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) made several
technical upgrades in the telegraph service, with the latest being the
introduction of a web-based messaging system in 2010. However, growing
Internet penetration and cheaper mobile phones in the last decade have
kept people away from the 182 telegraph offices across the country.

Read The Hindu story at
<http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/bsnl-to-shut-down-telegram-servic
es-from-june-15/article4806921.ece>