Closed the "last in the world" wired telegraph

As The Times of India informs us with great pathos, over the weekend there was another end of the era - the world's last wire telegraph network finished its work on Sunday, July 14, 2013.

Until now, this network, supported by the local Indian state-owned telecommunications company BSNL in Goa, has provided service to thousands of Indians, delivering about 5,000 telegrams daily. The service was very unprofitable and has recently cost BSNL $ 23 million a year. On Sunday evening, the BSNL customer service offices have thousands of disgruntled, suddenly discovering that their favorite medium of communication is no longer available.

And now - if for good - I will explain why practically every term in this news needs to be quoted.

If we put aside the sentimentality of the moment, then, in fact, the bottom line is not so much:
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• From real “wired telegraph” with Morse code, quite a long time ago, only one name remained - in the same BSNL service was transferred back to the early 2000s to deliver messages via the Internet, and not through dash points over the wire - and, it should be noted without special celebrations
• If we abandon the definition of "wire telegraph", then in fact there are still a lot of telegraph services in the world - take the same Central Telegraph in Russia - so that the "last" is also in quotes. A convenient list of existing telegraphs by country in Wikipedia has a few dozen other running services.
• BSNL made a statement that this would significantly reduce their costs - as much as $ 23 million a year - primarily due to the fact that they would eliminate the infrastructure of postmen who deliver telegrams "right in hand". BSNL - the largest telecommunications company in India, 250 thousand employees, 95 million subscribers only on telephony; Considering that BSNL's revenue is ~ 4.8 billion dollars a year, then these 23 million are a drop in the ocean - approximately 0.48%
• Telegrams were a convenient, legally meaningful way to send a message — including when the addressee pretended not to accept it — for example, to officials. Now from this method got rid of.
• Dissatisfied consist primarily of hunters for historical soverniriny - the termination of the service was announced BSNL first in the spring, then again - for a couple of weeks, when they called the exact date. A lot of people rushed to send “the last telegram in the history of mankind”, but were somewhat discouraged by the fact that on Sunday BSNL offices closed earlier than usual and many did not have time. Nevertheless, company representatives have already stated that it will be possible to “send” the “last telegrams” to everyone and on Monday - in the sense of buying a form, filling it out and receiving on it a stamp on acceptance for processing. In reality, these telegrams will not be delivered to the recipients.

However, this date has already gone down in history as the "end of the telegraph era."
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(beautiful picture of the telegraph provided by Zacatecnik )