Telex subscribers at home

[djl]

Hello. Sorry to speak in English, but is the only forgein language that I know. I'm curios, in countries like Italy, France, Switzerland, West Germany, Great Britain, U.S.A. in the '70-'90's there where any telex subscribers at home, meaning private persons having a telex machine at home.
For Germany (West, reunified) I found subscribers list called Amtliches verzeichnis der telexteilnehmer, but I didn't managed to see the contain of any of it.

[DF3OE]

Hello,

these were not really "private" subscribers. Often those Telex connections "at home" were used by journalists or
sales representatives to give their orders to the head office.

Telex was completely a business and government communication.

[djl]

So not even people that could afford paying the subsrciption wheren't intrested in using it for private communication - for eg in stad of making phone calls or sending letters.

[DF3OE]

No, why should they when there were no partners to communicate with... ?

Line rental, connections fees and the machine itself were far to expensive for private use. Even
for business use you thought 3 times if you would really need a Telex line to communicate with
busness partners who also had one...

For private urgent "instant communications" you could use Telegrams as kind of private Telex.
Time was "slower" back in the old days and there was no need of instant written communication.
Everything private you could manage by Telefone (and even that was not around everywhere)
or by mail with written letters.