Telex, a service that sent typed text messages over switched telegraph-style networks, began in Germany in the early 1930s and spread across Europe before growing into an international network linking trading houses, shipping companies, and banks worldwide by the 1950s and 1960s. Unlike the telephone, telex produced a printed, time-stamped written record, which made it attractive for confirming contracts, shipping instructions, and letters of credit. National telecommunications authorities, often state-run postal and telegraph administrations, operated and interconnected the telex exchanges under international technical standards coordinated through the International Telecommunication Union. By the 1970s, telex was a standard tool for international trade correspondence, used alongside telephone and early computer links.
Relevance to Trade History
Telex gave international traders a fast, written, and verifiable communication channel that became the backbone of mid-twentieth-century trade correspondence before computer networks took over.
Read the full story in our article The Telegraph and Faster Commercial Communication.
Source: International Telecommunication Union archive. See our Sources & Methodology page for how we select and verify references.