Telegram

There used to be two big names here that offer telegraph and telegram services. The nation relied on this service for its main communication. People relied on this for airport and pier arrivals of people, cargoes, merchandise and money transfers. Bottom line, our economy depends on this service.

A “social telegram” is for special occasions. In those days, getting a social telegram is a big deal. A “regalo gram” is a gift sent thru telegram. You get to choose from a catalogue which item you want to send. A “singing telegram” is when the delivery guy sings a song to the recipient. All these are the essentials of the decade’s social communication.

The later generations are actually not familiar of what I am discussing here. They sure miss the sweet thrill of waiting for the arrival of a social telegram. They have not experienced the process of going to a telegram counter to file a message; the annoyance of falling in line for sending an urgent message; the feeling of having a box full of telegram files received.

With the advent of cellular phones, the first industry affected were the pager companies, then the telegraph and telegram communication followed. An enormous loss for some companies, for the benefit of other company’s technological advancement. The cellular phone era has made a huge impact on the economy. What used to be an hour’s wait for a message seem to be incredibly overcome by a cellular phone’s “instant” messaging.

Before we leave this world’s high-technology competition, we will see more advancement and development that would leave the cellular phone era obsolete.