THE City of Kingston Co-operative Credit Union and a number of other companies will be among those who will have to adjust to the termination of Cable and Wireless Jamaica’s telegraph service, this month.

According to Dennis Hickey, COK’s marketing manager, their collections department has relied on the service in the past.

“The law stipulates that certain collection notices must be given by registered mail. A telegram would reach someone much faster than a letter sent through our regular mailing system,” Hickey explained.

He added, however, that they had already put measures in place to get around the discontinuation of the service.

“We are very proactive. We will use our bailiffs to do the job,” Hickey said.

C&WJ has been running ads, for the past few months, telling customers that their telegraph service had “been rendered almost redundant by the phenomenal growth of other communication technologies and message delivery mediums within Jamaica”. These include, they said, close to 1.4 million mobile and about 450,000 land-line telephones, fax machines, e-mails and courier services.

“All of these, together with improvements in the delivery of mail by the postal service,” C&WJ said in their ad, “have resulted in a significant fall-off in the use of the service.”

Hickey, who is also a marketing lecturer at the University of Technology, told the Observer that he understood C&WJ’s decision to terminate the service.

“I understand the economics of the decision to abandon the telegram service they were offering,” he said. “Companies are in business to make money. In addition, they probably would just end up cannibalising one of their own services.”

C&WJ offers both mobile and land-line telephone service as well as Internet access.

C&WJ charges $40 for the first 20 words of a telegram, and $1 for every additional word but efforts to ascertain how many persons across the island still use the service were unsuccessful.

“The service is still offered in the Corporate Area. You can go to any of our commercial offices and request the service,” a C&WJ employee said.

Telegram requests from these offices are then sent to C&WJ’s telegram department at its East Parade office in downtown Kingston. From there, they are dispatched to the relevant post offices across the island. The post offices then ask messengers to find the intended recipient of the telegram; and this sometimes involves trekking to remote areas of the country.

But while companies like COK have already put contingency plans in place for when the service is discontinued, others blasted C&WJ for its decision.

One representative of a major freight handling company, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described the move as “total madness”.

“In our line of business, it is almost an essential service. We need the telegram system. We use that service every week and I am sure that other freight companies use the service also,” the source said.

President of Freight Forwarders Association of Jamaica (FFAJ), Beverly Johnson-Green, also criticised C&WJ for cutting its telegrph service. “We strongly object. It is all good and well for C&W to talk about service being made redundant by the growth of other technologies,” she said. “The problem is how we will get to the little old men and women who live in some remote part of Jamaica, and are just reluctant or unable to use cell phones, e-mails or whatever new technologies.”

Johnson-Green said when persons are not imformed promptly about their barrels, the goods will stay on the wharf for more time than usual, thus attracting additional costs.

The FFAJ represents 72 of the more than 200 freight forwarding companies in Jamaica.