India to close world's last state telegram service on 14 July

The last telegram service in the world is due to close down on 14 July in India, killed off by the spread of mobile phones.

According to Christian Science Monitor, the country's state telecoms company Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) will be withdrawing its telegram service because it is currently losing $23m (£15m) per year.

Only around 5,000 telegrams are sent every day in India, down from a high of more than 60 million sent in 1985 from one of BNSL's 45,000 offices. There are now only 75 offices, employing a fraction of the staff.

The first telegram was sent by Samuel Morse in 1838, but the first Indian telegram sent in 1850 by British doctor and inventor William O'Shaughnessy. He was also responsible for laying thousands of kilometres of the wiring for the initial telegram network there over the following decade.

While the network has been upgraded over the years -- messages are now typed into computers, not spelled out using Morse code -- after 144 years the classic telegram model is coming to an end, and the blame has been levelled at text messaging and smartphones by BNSL executives. However, India's 26 percent mobile phone penetration is very poor by worldwide standards, so it's not clear that it's just mobiles that have led to the telegram's death.