The telegraph service in Thailand has come to an end after being operated for 133 years. Thailand’s telegraph operator CAT Telecom, revealed that the service is coming to an end due to lack of use and a lack of equipment and parts to maintain it.
The telegram was most popular in Thailand around 1985 where more than 8 million telegrams were sent that year.
In the late 1800s, the telegraph – as created by Samuel F.B. Morse and developed for commercial use by Alfred Vail – was king of communications. Messages were composed in a customer’s office, written out and delivered by hand to a local district telegraph office {source}.
There, the messages were coded for swift transmission over telegraph lines to the receiving district’s office, where they were decoded, transcribed and carried to their destinations by messengers.
In the Philippines, the telegram is still being used in many parts of the country although it has been overtaken by telephone lines and cellular networks in the last decade. It might take another decade or so before the country also pulls the plug on this century-old technology.