World in Network

The coffee export trade in Brazil has always had two important characteristics: the great distances between the producing areas from the trading centers and ports, and a market price that is very sensitive to external factors. Thus, access to information and fast communication between the parties involved were crucial. Therefore, each available technological advance was incorporated - telegraphy, telephony, radio transmission, telex, telefax, microcomputers, mobile telephony, internet - and, little by little, it adapted to new forms of trading.

In a short time, telegraphy had expanded in the United States, Europe, and, after the success installation of submarine cables, it made intercontinental connections, becoming a worldwide communication network. In Brazil, the first telegraph line was inaugurated in 1852, in Rio de Janeiro. But it was only after the Paraguayan War in 1865, that the network expanded and telegraph was consolidated as an important means of nationwide communication.

Communication abroad was by means of letters, and access to information by international and newspapers from the Portuguese court, which arrived on ships. The establishment of steamship networks had shortened the time for the arrival of vital information for trade – a logic that was also felt by the installation of the railways. In 1874, the first submarine telegraph cable was installed, connecting Brazil to other countries in a matter of minutes. 

Railroads, international steamships and telegraphs allowed the flow of information to Santos to be significantly changed. By using telegraphy, news arrived faster, from political events to price quotes in several consumer countries.

In the 1920s, names such as Italian Italcable and American International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT) and All America entered the market, breaking the British monopoly. With the end of the concession period and competition with other technologies, such as telex, the age of telegraphy would come to an end in the 1970s. 

The first compilation to be disseminated in the business world was The ABC Universal Commercial Electric Telegraphic Code, designed by William Clauson-Thue in 1873. Along with this one, others would also be used concurrently, such as Lieber's Standard Telegraph Code, Bentley's Complete Phrase Code and the Leviathan Cable Code. With the death of the creator of the ABC Code, the Acme Commodity and Phrase Code, created in 1923, replaced it as the one preferred by coffee companies in the Santos Market. 

In 1876, during the World’s Fair in Philadelphia, United States, Graham Bell introduced the telephone for the first time. Dom Pedro II, who participated in the demonstration, received two devices from the inventor and had them installed, interconnecting the Palace at Quinta da Boa Vista and the Palace at Rua Primeiro de Março. The telephone service was entrusted to the imperial government which, through concessions, kicked off the telephone service in Brazil.

Santos already had its telephone company, installed by Walter Hemsley, since 1883, with about 75 subscribers. In 1890, the Telephone Company of the State of São Paulo built an intercity line, connecting the city to the capital. However, communication with other cities in the interior of the state and outside the country was still precarious. It sometimes took days to complete a call - which was an obstacle to the use of this technology in business activities such as coffee, where speed was essential.

Technically, transmissions improved in quality and speed with the evolution of cables and the incorporation of other technologies. In 1962, with the creation of the Brazilian Telecommunications Code, and with the institutionalization of the sector, the system was modernized and structured, also growing in number of subscribers.

The principle of transmitting sound by means of electromagnetic waves through cables was also tested by air transmissions, with radio signals. It was in late 19th century that Italian Guglielmo Marconi and Brazilian Roberto Landell de Moura, within five years of each other, obtained successful tests and paved the way for radio communication.

In the 1930s, several companies competed to create telegraphs with automated transmission and reception of messages, reducing the need for intermediation by specialized operators and streamlining communication - these were the first teleprinters. The development of this technology in the following decades made it possible for the message typed by the sender to be printed almost simultaneously on his device, and on the device of the recipient.

In the 1950s, telex was already consolidated internationally in institutional and business communications. In Brazil, this would only happen in the 1960s, with the private networks owned by Radiobrás and Radional, connecting subscribers with their correspondents abroad, and the Postal and Telegraph Department with the national telex network. Local transmissions used the telephone network itself, and intercontinental transmissions were done via submarine cables and radio.

In Santos, the international telex network had been available since 1961, via Radiobrás, connecting the city with other continents. In 1972, the number of users was still small, with 100 leased terminals. Subscribers to the service included shipping agencies, dispatch offices and coffee companies, as well as government agencies. 

The first invention for the transmission of written documents, which used telegraph lines, dates from 1843 and is attributed to Alexander Bain, Scotland. However, the invention was abandoned and was not officially tested. Italian Giovanni Caselli is considered the inventor of the first functional facsimile device - called a pantograph - linking Paris to Lyon in 1863, and which could transmit not only written documents, but also images, such as drawings, scores and spreadsheets. 

The Brazilian market had three types of devices - personal, semi-professional and professional. They varied in price and sophistication, with differences in quality, speed and number of pages sent per call, as well as features, such as scheduled message transmission, programmable dialing memory, contrast controls, etc.

Between 1987 to 1989, the number of machines increased from 6,000 to 69,000, and kept growing during the following years. And like any technology that streamlined or improved communications in some way, the fax was incorporated by the offices of brokers and exporters.