Re: [telecom] Western Union public fax services, 1960 (telecom)

Price is always a factor. Sure there are people willing to pay a very high price for quickness (such as people who flew the Concorde), but they are relatively few. The Concorde, despite its high fares, did not make money and has been discontinued. It's high speed simply wasn't/isn't worth the fares to make it sustainable.

I can't help but wonder if WU's public fax service didn't get many customers due to its high price and limited convenience, that is, it just wasn't cost effective. The article said more cities would be added if demand justified, but I don't think the demand ever did nor the service ever expanded.

It is easier to communicate via a two-way phone conversation (instant feedback) than a terse one-way telegram, but until long distance rates dropped, businesses used telegrams instead of the phone to save money. Back then, making a long distance call was reserved for the most important of issues due to the high cost, otherwise telegraph or plain mail would do. When toll rates dropped around 1960, long distance usage went way up and telegrams went way down.

Years ago companies had copying machines but they were expensive to use and people were expected to use carbon paper instead. If something had to be copied, it was logged; perhaps there was one copier in an entire building. Today we don't even think about cost and freely use our copying machines, indeed, can't even conceive of running an office without one, but obviously, despite their convenience, people had to make do in the past due to high cost.

Remember, for this service, one had to physically take or messenger their document to the central WU office in a city; which was time consuming and cumbersome in itself. The destination had to be in one of the above mentioned cities and there was delivery time as well. The ads said WU would deliver free "within city limits", but what about Los Angeles which had a huge metropolitan area outside the city limits?

The other issue is what other modes were available for speedy transmission. As mentioned, the post office offered air mail and special delivery which may have been overnight in 1960 and a heck of a lot cheaper even with premium postage. There may have been air or railway express services that delivered overnight; I know overnight rail service was available from NYC to Chicago via the 20th Century, though I don't know the cost.

In a sense, WU was competing with itself in that someone could send the text (say of a contract or contract changes) via telegram. I don't know the charges for a lengthy telegram, but a night letter was relatively cheap. Also, back then sending a telegram was much easier-- it could be done over the phone or a more convenient branch WU agents.

A larger organization would have Telex or TWX and could route the text of the message that way.

I could see a need to quickly send engineering documents like blueprints and schematics, but such documents are usually much larger than 7.5" x 10". Cutting up a document into sections for transmission is cumbersome. Also, documents would be needed on site, not necessarily in the big city.

I don't know what WU technically required to transmit documents, I presume it was a broadband connection, not their plain 50 Baud lines. I don't know if their fax machines were extremely expensive that limited rollout. I would guess that this service would've been much more popular if offered in more principal cities throughout the country, like Boston, Detroit, Cleveland, Denver, Miami, Houston, as well as growing areas like Atlanta and Las Vegas.

I wonder if the big three television networks could've used the service between NYC network HQ and Hollywood development studios. There must have been a high volume of scripts, script changes, and contracts moving back and forth.

Nor its highly negative environmental impact, or limited available routes, or requirements for special ATC handling.

Not to mention that, as I've read somewhere, at the time it was "discontinued" the Concorde had accumulated by far the _worst_ cumulative safety record (deaths per passenger mile) of any major model of jet airliner ever operated in commercial service.

On Wed, 18 Mar 2009 20:59:20 -0400, AES wrote: .....

Which was probably due to that Paris crash *caused* by debris from another plane that took off immediately before it.

Anyhow, Concord was a woefully inefficient conveyance with those 1960's technology engines gobbling fuel at an extraordinary rate and depositing masses of pollution high in the stratosphere - the planet is better off without it.

It's interesting that the founders of FedEx discovered and filled a market niche for overnight delivery of things that can't be faxed.

I wonder if FedEx "discovered" or more likely "rediscovered" an old market.

There were always 'express' shipments, including of documents. In writeups on the history of the Twentieth Century Limited, offices would send material between NYC and Chicago overnight on that train. Other items were shipped on other trains as well for expedited handling. There was once a company, the Railway Express Agency, that handled this sort of thing. When railroads faded in importance in the late 1960s, so did this company.

Years ago even commuter trains had baggage cars that would deliver parcels and newspapers to local stations. I used to see hospital supplies shipped by commuter train in the late 1970s.

I don't know the time aspects, but the Post Office used to offer premium air mail service, as well as special delivery. What that meant in terms of time saved I don't know. Supposedly it was no longer needed when all long distance first class mail was sent by air, but I think in the old days the PO expedited shipments more than they do now. That is, now I think they tend to batch mail into as large as batch as possible and send it out once a day, whereas before small shipments would be dispatched several times throughout the day. Years ago there were multiple deliveries per day; and I believe "special delivery" meant they sent someone out specially to deliver a specific item (not quite offered now).

There was a survey done and they found that many office people were using FedEx as a matter of routine even when it wasn't necessary, such as to another floor in the same building, or when an extra day to deliver would be fine.

FedEx handles more than just mere sheets of paper; many items are too big or oversized to fax.

I wonder if FedEx's volume has declined on account of email capabilities. On the flip side, it may be delivering more goods from catalog sales to buyers who want their order right away.