[GreenKeys] Western Union Stops Sending Telegrams

[wa2hwj at att.net]

We all know WU took a nosedive when they started using Model 32's and 33's ... !!!!!!!.

Jack WA2HWJ



-------------- Original message from Don Robert House <drhouse at nadcomm.com>: -------------- 


> Era Ends: Western Union Stops Sending Telegrams 
> By Robert Roy Britt 
> LiveScience Managing Editor 
> posted: 31 January 2006 
> 10:17 pm ET 
> 
> After 145 years, Western Union has quietly stopped sending telegrams. 
> On the company's web site, if you click on "Telegrams" in the left- 
> side navigation bar, you're taken to a page that ends a technological 
> era with about as little fanfare as possible: 
> 
> "Effective January 27, 2006, Western Union will discontinue all 
> Telegram and Commercial Messaging services. We regret any 
> inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you for your loyal 
> patronage. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact a 
> customer service representative." 
> 
> The decline of telegram use goes back at least to the 1980s, when 
> long-distance telephone service became cheap enough to offer a viable 
> alternative in many if not most cases. Faxes didn't help. Email could 
> be counted as the final nail in the coffin. 
> 
> Western Union has not failed. It long ago refocused its main business 
> to make money transfers for consumers and businesses. Revenues are 
> now $3 billion annually. It's now called Western Union Financial 
> Services, Inc. and is a subsidiary of First Data Corp. 
> 
> The world's first telegram was sent on May 24, 1844 by inventor 
> Samuel Morse. The message, "What hath God wrought," was transmitted 
> from Washington to Baltimore. In a crude way, the telegraph was a 
> precursor to the Internet in that it allowed rapid communication, for 
> the first time, across great distances. 
> 
> Western Union goes back to 1851 as the Mississippi Valley Printing 
> Telegraph Company. In 1856 it became the Western Union Telegraph 
> Company after acquisition of competing telegraph systems. By 1861, 
> during the Civil War, it had created a coast-to-coast network of lines. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Don R. House K9TTY 
> drhouse at nadcomm.com 
> 
> 
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