Post Federation: Peak and Decline
Following the Federation of Australia (in 1901) and the establishment of the Postmaster-General's Department (a Federal Government Department, in modern parlance) telegraphic equipment was progressively improved. In 1905, the use of Wheatstone equipment on the Adelaide and Perth routes improved speed to 220 words per minute. By 1922, the Murray Multiplex System allowed one line to be used for eight transmissions at the speed of fifty words per transmission per minute.
Telegram usage continued to climb, peaking at 35 million messages per annum in 1945. Thereafter, the telephone continuously eroded the popularity of telegrams, both because of relative price of the two services and network service improvements. Additionally, from 1954, teleprinters handled more and more traffic. In 1959, an automated switching system (TRESS) further enhanced the utility of teleprinters by allowing messages that were centrally directed to be automatically retransmitted to their final destination without the need for a human operator. The last telegraph message sent exclusively by land line was sent to Wyndham and Halls Creek in mid-1963, and the final message using a land line for any section of its passage was sent in 1964.
By 1975 telegram usage had halved from its 1945 level and in 1993 Australia Post discontinued its letter-gram service, which consisted of postage delivery "telegrams", that is, messages typed as per genuine telegrams, and delivered in the same manner (although never transmitted over telegraph lines).
Read more about this topic: History Of Telegraphy In Australia
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