It's the telex machine all over a-bloody-again, I tell you".
On Tuesday, the counter-revolution was in full flood, telephone and telex lines were cut and the airports closed.
A telex from the British embassy in Dublin warned: "Dr FitzGerald cannot afford to come away from the summit empty-handed".
SchumacherMar 26th 2009 Guru: Tom PetersMar 5th 2009 Guru: Alfred SloanJan 30th 2009 Guru: C.K. PrahaladSep 19th 2008With the invention of the telephone and the telex, the centralised head office came into its own.
And the internet has not yet killed off the telex.
Britain will then join around 30 countries including Austria, Germany and Russia that no longer provide telex through their national telecoms operators.In this section Coming up trumps Fair game Net benefits A faint ping ReprintsBut that clears the way for nimble, low-cost competitors.
"The telex network is closed you can't get in unless you are part of the club," says Peter MacLaverty of SwissTelex.Small financial institutions not hooked up to the main international money-transfer system, SWIFT, find telexes a cost-effective alternative.
IN 1973 global finance saw a back-room revolution when a group of banks formed a co-operative to offer those moving money across borders a slick alternative to the clunky old telex.
As well as maintaining the old-fashioned service involving terminals and dedicated lines, they provide telex services both over phone lines and over the internet in effect, making it a secure and ultra-reliable variant of e-mail.
Mr Wang says that ten years ago customers asking for design changes were happy with a two-week response by telex.
At speeds of around one-millionth of that of a modern broadband connection, it sent data chugging along dedicated networks to clunky terminals.In its time, telex was a huge improvement on the international telegram system, which could charge the modern equivalent of several dollars per word.
