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India To Send World's Last Telegram

Posted by Soulskill on from the unless-we-decide-to-get-away-from-PRISM dept.

New submitter afarhan writes "India will pull the plug on its 160-year-old telegram service on 14 July, this year. This will probably be the last telegram ever sent in the world. However, telegrams are still relevant in this vast country. More than 500 million people are still without access to a phone or Internet. For these people, telegram still remains the only digital communication available. 'At their peak in 1985, 60 million telegrams were being sent and received a year in India from 45,000 offices. Today, only 75 offices exist, though they are located in each of India's 671 districts through franchises. And an industry that once employed 12,500 people, today has only 998 workers.' In India, telegram is also considered a legal correspondence."

6 of 205 comments (clear)

  1. Nope ... Service still available in Europe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well sorry for the Article but it's actually false :) Telegram is still alive and kicking in Europe ... for instance in Belgium where you can still send Telegrams right now !
    Here is the national telecommunication operator page about it :

    www.belgacom.be/en/private/products-and-services/fixed-telephony/options-and-services/other-services?page=p_other_services_available
            Telegram

            There are several formulas to choose from:
                    Comfort Telegram
                    A telegram ordered via the post.
                            With an illustration for offering condolences or congratulations.
                            Without an illustration.
                    The Standard National Telegram
                    The "conventional", revised and corrected telegram delivered by Taxipost, our courier service. Telegrams sent before midday are delivered the same day; those sent after midday are delivered the next working day at the latest.
                    The Flash Telegram
                    The quickest method. As soon as our telegraph operators receive your telegram, our courier service makes a special delivery as quickly as possible. It is also possible to send a Flash Telegram and add a gift.

    For international messages, your telegram will be sent by our telegraphists to the country of destination. It is delivered in accordance with the terms and conditions of express delivery in the country concerned.

    1. Re:Nope ... Service still available in Europe by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Informative

      Did you read that link? You initiate that 'telegram' by sending an email. Then they deliver it to the destination for you. The primary benefit is the courier service.

      Although it's called telegram, you can be sure belgacom doesn't have a pair of operators to translate your email into morse code so it can be sent to the other side. Whereas in India, they literally have someone sitting on a wire clicking short and long signs.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re:Nope ... Service still available in Europe by Zynder · · Score: 4, Informative

      Telegraphs send telegrams. One is a device and one is a group of information. Do try to keep up...

  2. binary is a subset of digital, by definition by raymorris · · Score: 4, Informative

    > binary, by itself, doesn't (I'm pretty sure but may be mistaken) confer "digital" status.

    The defining distinction between digital and analog is that analog can represent a continuous range, whereas digital can only represent specific values. A phonograph, for example, can represent an infinite range of values between silence and full volume. A CD, on the other hand, can only encode certain volumes, not any in between. That's what makes a phonograph analog and a CD digital. Therefore, binary is BY DEFINITION digital - it uses just two values, not an infinite range

    That's good and bad for both. With digital, you get back EXACTLY what you debt, with no degradation. With analog, you can receive a signal even if it can't be received perfectly, because it can receive 0.46 when its not possible to distinguish between 0 and 1.

  3. Re:dots and dashes = ones and zeroes = binary = di by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Since traditional telegraphs consist of only dots and dashes, they are digital, and binary.

    Actually no. Silences are meaningful in morse, so it's ternary, not binary.

  4. Re:dots and dashes = ones and zeroes = binary = di by Sique · · Score: 3, Informative

    You even have short and long silences, thus we are talking base 4.

    --
    .sig: Sique *sigh*