Telegraphy

**Telegraphy** is the transmission of coded messages over wire using electricity.

## History

Telegraphy was first invented in Pierrebourg, Griffonstone, where an early telegraph network started to appear serving as an alternative to the earlier heliographs.

The first transoceanic and transnational telegraph was built between Pierrebourg and Baltimare. It had a low throughput of about a symbol per minute, but it enabled faster communication than by boat. Early wires were improved on, more recently enabling a throughput of 500 symbols per minute even in transoceanic communications.

The Crystal Empire followed up by developing their own network, which was soon connected to the developing network in Equestria and therefore to Griffonstone's as well.

As Equestria made efforts to connect their colonies and provinces to the mainland, the telegraph network exploded across Equus, reaching all major landmasses. Territories neighboring Equestria's colonies connected to Equestria's telegraph network, soon creating a network which spanned every country.

### Early issues

When the telegraph was first brought to Equestria, significant interference was found in the communications, which was found to be caused by the magical usage of telegraphs by Unicorn operators affecting the electrical currents in the wires. Early telegraphs had to be magically insulated to allow for easy operation by magic-wielding creatures.

Further adaptations were made as the first telegraphs had been built to be operated with claws, requiring wider tappers for their operation with hooves.

## Exchanges and routing

Telegraph exchanges serve as a hub that telegraph terminals and other exchanges can connect with to reduce the number of wires needed by connecting all terminals to the exchange instead of connecting each terminal to all other terminals.

Connecting to a terminal through an exchange requires starting the message by specifying the recipient so that the message can be relayed accordingly. This is done by starting the message by the exchange's identifier followed by the terminal's identifier.

If the recipient is within the same exchange, the message can be relayed directly; otherwise, the message needs to be relayed to an exchange that is closer to the recipient until the recipient's exchange is reached and the message can be relayed to it directly.

Exchanges must register officially to be assigned a unique identifier that message senders can use to refer to them. Beyond that, each exchange is free to assign identifiers to its members following any format as long as the identifier uses valid symbols and the messages can be relayed correctly.

Message relaying can be done automatically, but in most places it is done by employees of the exchange.

### Exchange identifiers

This is an incomplete list of exchanges and their identifiers.

## Telephony

Telephony was invented as a way of using existing telegraph infrastructure to send sound over wire.

While it doesn't require translating the message into code like the telegraph, sound quality is poor and greatly affected by distance and the regular telegraph is preferred for clarity, specially in long-distance communication.

Telephony is only feasible for communication through about 6,000 royal hooves of wire or less.

## Radiotelegraphy

Radio has been proposed as a means of wireless telegraphy in cases where telepgraph wires are particularly vulnerable or hard to lay.