Highlights of the Telecommunications History of South Africa

Highlights of the Telecommunications History of South Africa
1500-1899 1900-1990 1991 1992 1992 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

1500-1899
Year Milestones
1501 First post office act performed - the letter was left under a tree in Mossel Bay.
1791 First Post Office established at The Castle, Cape Town.
1845 First postage stamp used.
1860 First telegraph installed in April as a single wire earth return telegraph line (circuit run) on wooden poles between Cape Town and Simonstown by The Cape Of Good Hope Telegraph Company. The first telegraph in South Africa, a "Cooke and Weatstone-system in the form of a visual needle telegraph was a private company enterprise.
1861 The second Telegraph service between East London and King Williams Town was introduced and the third between Cape Town and Grahamstown.
1864 The fourth telegraph was installed between Durban and Pietermaritzburg.
1873 Communication prior to this date was privately owned in the Cape. Cape Government expropriated communication from Cape of Good Hope Telegraph for 40,750 pounds.
1876 Telegraph between Cape Town and Kimberly was installed.
1878 First telephones installed in Cape Town - Point to Point. Soon after Alexander Bells invention of the telephone (Feb. 1876), Adolph Boettger, owner of a small watchmakers shop in Short Market Street in Cape Town, imported a few telephones from Siemens & Halske. These telephones were used experimentally to link the dwelling of the Telegraph Departments chief clerk with the St George Street Post Office.
1879 First submarine cable between Europe and Durban. On the 27 December South Africa was directly connected with Europe via Durban and Zanzibar to Aden by means of the East Coast cable of the South African Telegraph Company. This was a single channel cable. KwaZulu-Natal had its first exchange in Pietermaritzburg.
1880 South Africa linked to rest of the world by submarine cable.
1882 The business community of Port Elizabeth requested that the first telephone exchange in South Africa be established. It was opened on 1 May with 20 subscribers that year.
1883 First telegraph transmission between Cape Town and London.
1884 Cape Post Office Savings Bank opened - tenth such a bank in the world. The first exchange in the Cape became operational.
1885 The Cape Telegraph Department and the Post Office in the Cape amalgamated on 16 February under control of the Post Master General, GW Aitcheson.
Duplex telegraphy was introduced on the Cape Town to Kimberley line enabling messages to be received and transmitted simultaneously along one wire.
1889 First West Coast submarine cable from Cape Town to Europe. Second cable via St Helena and Ascension Islands.
1890 The first telephone exchange, that was ordered for Johannesburg was installed in Pretoria due to insufficient subscribers in Johannesburg.
1893 First exchange in Johannesburg.
1894 The Johannesburg telephone exchange opened with 127 subscribers.
The first telegraph between Durban and Pietermaritzburg was introduced.
1895 Penny Bank established. New telephone regulation was introduced stipulating that henceforth all telephone apparatus must be hired from the Department (Cape).
1897 Edward Jennings, a Cape Post Office technician, transmitted radio signals, using a coherer, over a distance of ½ km in Port Elizabeth, without prior knowledge of Bramley or Marconi's discovery.
First uses of underground cable - previously all cables were overhead.
1898 Public telephones were introduced in Kimberley. They were known as call offices and were housed in silence cabinets for use indoors.