Era Ends: Western Union Stops Sending Telegrams 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 Wester