[GreenKeys] Fwd: Telegraph goes silent...

[Don Robert House]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Don Robert House <drhouse at nadcomm.com>
> Date: Tue Oct 4, 2005  10:27:37 PM America/Chicago
> Subject: Telegraph goes silent...
>
> Wednesday, December 18, 1991
> AT&T's telegraph goes silent after 104 years of dots, dashes
>
> BASKING RIDGE, N.J. --- American Telephone & Telegraph Co. is still in 
> telephones, but it's 104-year-old telegraph service is now officially 
> silent.
>
> It's clattering Teletype and ticker tape machines once the key to 
> sending news, numbers and messages all over the world, have simply 
> been outpaced by lower-cost, higher-quality and faster digital 
> telecommunications technology, the company said yesterday as it 
> announced the service's demise.
>
> Actually, it has been silent since earlier this year, when the last 
> customer opted for more modern AT&T service, a spokesman said.
>
> AT&T had been in the telegraph business since 1887, when it opened its 
> first private line telegraph service for L. H. Taylor & Co. between 
> the broker's offices in New York and Philadelphia.  A year later it 
> launched the first such service for Globe Newspaper Co. between New 
> York and Boston.
>
> Under an agreement struck in the early 20th century, AT&T operated 
> private-line telegraphy, while Western Union Telegraph Co. offered it 
> to the public, an AT&T spokesman said.  Private-line telegraphy 
> operated so-called designated lines between points, such as news 
> bureaus.
>
> Western Union Corp., another company famous for telegraph service, has 
> fallen on hard times in recent years as it failed to find a profitable 
> replacement.
>
> Use of telegraphy, which sends information through simple, unmodulated 
> electric impulses that register as dots and dashes, has declined as 
> electronic data processing, wireless, and digital methods gained 
> ground.
>
> AT&T's telegraph service actually had more clients until this year 
> than one might have expected, such as government agencies, utilities, 
> and alarm companies, said an AT&T spokesman.
>
> "It just got passed by by new services, which is fine," he said. "It's 
> better for the user."
>
> Most customers have switched to digital private line services such as 
> AT&T's Dataphone Digital Service and Accunet Spectrum of Digital 
> Services, the spokesman said.
>
> But not to fear. Regional telephone companies often still offer some 
> type of telegraph service, and old AT&T telegraph equipment will be 
> preserved in the company's archives.
>
> And the name --- American Telephone & Telegraph --- remains the same.
>
> "It's an historic name," the spokesman said. "We love it."
>