American Telephone & Telegraph Co. has stopped offering telegraph service due to low demand for the low-tech communications - but it has no plans to change its name.
"It is an historic name and our legacy," said Wes Bartlett, AT&T district manager of business communications services.Telegraph service, which sends messgages over wires in dots and dashes, was the primary means of long-distance communications before the advent of long-distance telephone systems.
Even after telephones became widespread, telegraph service remained popular throughout the 1960s, in part because it provided a written record, AT&T said.
But AT&T said telegraphs have fallen out of favor in recent years to faxes, computerized electronic mail and digital data transmission.
"In 1991, the last few customers underwent the transition," AT&T spokesman Mitch Montagna said Tuesday. "We thought it would be interesting to tell the world it's now official."
Digital technology can transmit information hundreds of thousands times faster than telegraphy and is cheaper, AT&T said.
Western Union Corp., another company famous for telegraph service, has fallen on hard times in recent years as it failed to find a profitable replacement.