It’s old and boring and slow, says Laurence Roberts, sales director of Comtext International Ltd. He is talking about telex, Comtext’s main service and the comment is a compliment one of the reasons why he believes that whatever the big players may say, telex is not going to disappear. This week Comtext launched a competitive service to British Telecommunications Plc and Mercury Communications Ltd (CI No 1,696), claiming that on average, its international telex rates are 20% cheaper than the market leader. On the same day, Telecom raised its telex rates by 10% and, it was reported, has decided to cut telephone charges to the US by more than the 10% specified by the Office of Telecommunications, in the Duopoly Review. Roberts believes that British Telecom’s reported pricing policy is indicative of the attitudes towards telex displayed by the large carriers, for the large players, telex is probably not worth bothering with… the money to be made out of telex is probably chicken feed to British Telecom, but to us, its worth a great deal. Roberts reckons the market in telex traffic leaving the UK is worth around UKP120m a year – a figure which he agrees is not set to grow, I accept that the cake is declining, but it’s a cake that we can get a bigger share of. BT, he says, has around half of the market and at the moment Comtext has 3%, a figure which Roberts hopes to grow to 5% over the next three years. Last year, its first full year of operation, the London-based company made UKP13.5m and routed 17m telexes. The company has a built up a network of leased lines and X25 links to carry messages, and says it can undercut the larger operators because it has its own network and does not have reciprocal arrangements to pay foreign operators the difference, if it carries fewer messages than they are carrying for it. But despite the relatively large market, telex is often seen as a tired, old technology, with not much of a future.

Obsolete

Cable & Wireless Plc’s Richard Rogerson said recently in regard to the communications infrastructure in post-Gulf war Kuwait, I personally expect telex to become practically non-existent. Replaced, no doubt, by Cable’s facsimile Surefax service, which Rogerson said he felt would be of interest to business people returning to the area. It is the facsimile that has dented telex revenues and made the technology obsolete in parts of the US and Europe. But Roberts disputes that telex has outlived its usefulness, and reports brisk trade from the Middle East, and growing business in Thailand, India and Eastern Europe. The reason, he says for its popularity in these regions is the poor quality of the telephone lines – hence the idea that if it’s old and boring and slow it at least means that it always gets through. He cites Greece as a good example of a country that benefits from telex, you can’t make a phone call when it rains in Greece… I don’t think people that want to build digital highways [for data networking and fax services] have travelled to these countries… I think they live in a different world. Roberts does not accept the idea that in the case of places such as Kuwait and Eastern Europe, where telecommunication infrastructures have to be built almost from scratch, digital technology will override the need for telexes – we can say the customer, what are you dong now? In the end though, despite the bullish predictions about the longevity of the technology, Roberts acknowledges that his ace card in the debate about the future of telexes is the legal question, and freely admits, its the legality issue that keeps the fax at bay. Facsimiles are still not accepted as legal documents, making telexes invaluable in shipping, financial and banking communities, until someone comes up with a fax that can’t be easily forged, those communities will continue to need telex.