September 1999
Telex For International Business
By Peter Walker
During the last few years the old fashioned telex system has been modernised to play an important part in international business.
Some people these days might associate the word "telex" with a 1980's Belgian pop group rather than with a telecommunications system, but this ageing system could, and should, form part of the communications strategy of businesses. It is particularly important to exporters as well as to banks and shipping companies.
The reason arises from the complicated technology of modern communications, which due to that sophistication does not always provide all the answers. The older telex system is well described in an English judgment by Lord Denning, then a Court of Appeal judge, who was trying to understand what was then a new technology in the 1950's. He said, "Each company has a teleprinter machine in its office; and each has a Telex number like a telephone number. When one company wishes to send a message to the other a clerk at one end types a message on to his machine just as if it were a typewriter, and it is instantaneously passed to the machine at the other end, which automatically types the message on to paper at that end."
It was therefore the forerunner of the fax and e-mail, but there are some important differences, in that firstly, telex is not part of a fast digital technology-it can be very slow. On the other hand, it is not part of the telephone network, and is therefore less prone to interference from hackers. The answerback is generated by the system and not by the sender of the message.
This makes it a lot more secure than fax or e-mail, and is one of the reasons why banks use telexes in international money transfers. If you instruct your bank to transfer money overseas, the bank will make the arrangements by telex.
Other important users are shipping, finance and trading companies, and the law courts furthermore are more ready to recognise contracts concluded by the system. Many telex service providers assert that it is superior in this respect to e-mail and fax, but this is not true. You may make a legally binding contract by these more modern means too.
A more important reason for using telex is that many countries do not have good telecommunications. British Telecom, for example, recently pointed out that in the CIS "line quality can be poor, meaning that data connections may run slowly with high error rates." There are also not enough international telephone lines to many countries, so that all you get is the engaged tone.
There are business opportunities in such countries, but the telephone systems may be inadequate. I myself recently have had a telex conversation with some colleagues working in the Ivory Coast, where I typed information and almost instantly received a reply. The typing was not of a high standard but telex solved the problem of poor telephone links, and it often keeps on working when everything else fails. Local engineers in third-world countries can also repair telex machines, while fax machines are beyond their capabilities.
More sophisticated businesses confined to Europe and North America have been throwing away their telex machines-the UK telecommunications regulatory body OFTEL reports that British Telecom's 110,000 telex customers of 1988 had fallen to 40,000 by 1994. AT&T in contrast reports that there remain some 2 million users in 220 countries, and it is one of many telecommunications providers which offers an international telex service.
Other companies can supply modern computers adapted to send telex messages. There are also programs running on portable computers, although in all cases the modem has to be plugged into a dedicated telex line. E-mails can also be translated into telex format.
Transmission technology has also improved, in that satellites have made worldwide communications easier. British Telecom and Telekomunikacja Polska S.A both can transmit telex messages through the Inmarsat satellite system to be received by ships at sea. British Telecom has recently announced a new Suresat maritime service where the messages are transmitted via the Internet to the satellite station. All telex users, whether at sea or on land, with a large volume of messages can reduce costs by using the services of various telecommunication companies, which will store and forward messages through the cheapest routes available.
There is therefore still a lot of life in the telex system. If you are an international business, and there is a neglected telex machine standing silently in a corner, do not throw it away. E-mail and the Internet are not a practical proposition in many parts of the world. A modernised telex system can solve communication problems to the benefit of your business, and perhaps like some 1980's pop groups it is due for a revival.
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
