The postal activities (physical transport) and telecommunications (virtual transport) had and continue to have interactions, the stamps for the service telegraphic or telephone were not used to justify the payment of the transport of an object, in addition they could not be used for the stamping from the physical correspondences.

   The first stamp-telephone sees arrived in 1880 with the appearance of the telephone in 1879. It thus succeeds the stamp-telegraph which had been born to him in 1868.

   It is about the first mode of payment of the telephone calls.

   Initially the stamp-telephone will be declined in typographical version with a heel. From 1885, it will be transformed into true stamp called “bulletin of conversation” before becoming in 1897 a “bulletin of communication”.

Bulletin of Communication
Obliteration of Algiers of the 20 09 1908

   The telegraph was installed in Algiers in 1842 for the needs for the French military Administration ; lines of stations were created initially towards the South, then towards the West where military operations were most active. Twelve years after its appearance, it included a network of almost 1.500 kilometers.

   The first lines of electric telegraph were installed as from 1854, of Oran with Mostaganem (76 kilometers), of Algiers with Médéa (90 kilometers), of Constantine with Philippeville (83 kilometers). In 1878, the service of the Telegraph amalgamated with the postal service since this time, the two exploitations developed in parallel. All the post offices were provided with the telegraph. The offices of first importance used the apparatus Baudot, the others the Morse apparatus. In the territories of the South, the telegraphic wire served only the septentrional oases, Colomb-Béchar, Ghardaïa, Ouargla; some others, southernmost, were connected to Algeria and between them, by the wireless telegraphy.

   The first underwater cable connecting France and Algeria was laid in 1861 between Algiers and Port-Vendres, but it functioned only two years.

   The first regular communications date from the installation of the cable of Bône-Marseilles, brought into service on August 7, 1870 and were exploited by an English company, Eastern Telegraph. Since, six other cables were posed, four between Marseilles and Algiers (in 1871, 1879, 1888 and 1913), the fifth between Marseilles and Oran (1892), the last between Marseilles and Philippeville (1925). All these cables were provided with the apparatus Baudot-Picardy printer; moreover, since 1923, the Duplex system makes it possible simultaneously to use each one of them in the two directions.

   The progression of the number of telegrams exchanged by the Algerian offices can give an idea of the importance and development of the telegraphic traffic in Algeria :

   5.717.000 telegrams in 1900;

   11.054.000 in 1911;

   11.854.000 in 1922.

   Lastly, 13.154.000 telegrams in 1928.

   Source : http://phonecards.free.fr & http://timbreposte.free.fr

I - Before the Independence of 1868 to 1943

II - Before the Independence of 1943 to 1958

III - After Independence