history of the telephone essay

How the Telephone Was Invented

In the 1870s, Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell independently designed devices that could transmit speech electrically. Both men rushed their respective designs for these prototype telephones to the patent office within hours of each other. Bell patented his telephone first and later emerged the victor in a legal dispute with Gray.

Today, Bell's name is synonymous with the telephone, while Gray is largely forgotten. However, the story of who invented the telephone goes beyond these two men. 

Bell's Biography

Alexander Graham Bell was born on March 3, 1847, in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was immersed in the study of sound from the beginning. His father, uncle, and grandfather were authorities on elocution and speech therapy for the deaf. It was understood that Bell would follow in the family footsteps after finishing college. But after Bell's two other brothers died of tuberculosis, Bell and his parents decided to immigrate to Canada in 1870.

After a brief period of living in Ontario, the Bells moved to Boston where they established speech-therapy practices specializing in teaching deaf children to speak. One of Alexander Graham Bell's pupils was a young Helen Keller, who when they met was not only blind and deaf but also unable to speak.

Although working with the deaf would remain Bell's principal source of income, he continued to pursue his own studies of sound on the side. Bell's unceasing scientific curiosity led to the invention of the photophone , significant commercial improvements in Thomas Edison's phonograph, and to the development of his own flying machine just six years after the Wright Brothers launched their plane at Kitty Hawk. As President James Garfield lay dying of an assassin's bullet in 1881, Bell hurriedly invented a metal detector in an unsuccessful attempt to locate the fatal slug.

From Telegraph to Telephone

The telegraph and telephone are both wire-based electrical systems. Alexander Graham Bell's success with the telephone came as a direct result of his attempts to improve the telegraph. When he began experimenting with electrical signals, the telegraph had been an established means of communication for some 30 years. Although a highly successful system, the telegraph was basically limited to receiving and sending one message at a time.

Bell's extensive knowledge of the nature of sound and his understanding of music enabled him to consider the possibility of transmitting multiple messages over the same wire at the same time. Although the idea of a "multiple telegraph" had been in existence for some time, it was purely conjecture as no one had been able to fabricate one—until Bell. His "harmonic telegraph" was based on the principle that several notes could be sent simultaneously along the same wire if the notes or signals differed in pitch.

Talk With Electricity

By October 1874, Bell's research had progressed to the extent that he could inform his future father-in-law, Boston attorney Gardiner Greene Hubbard, about the possibility of a multiple telegraph. Hubbard, who resented the absolute control then exerted by the Western Union Telegraph Company, instantly saw the potential for breaking such a monopoly and gave Bell the financial backing he needed.

Bell proceeded with his work on the multiple telegraph but did not tell Hubbard that he and Thomas Watson, a young electrician whose services he had enlisted, were also developing a device that would transmit speech electrically. While Watson worked on the harmonic telegraph at the insistent urging of Hubbard and other backers, Bell secretly met in March 1875 with Joseph Henry , the respected director of the Smithsonian Institution, who listened to Bell's ideas for a telephone and offered encouraging words. Spurred on by Henry's positive opinion, Bell and Watson continued their work.

By June 1875, the goal of creating a device that would transmit speech electrically was about to be realized. They had proven that different tones would vary the strength of an electric current in a wire. To achieve success, therefore, they needed only build a working transmitter with a membrane capable of varying electronic currents and a receiver that would reproduce these variations in audible frequencies.

"Mr. Watson, Come Here"

On June 2, 1875, while experimenting with the harmonic telegraph, the men discovered that sound could be transmitted over a wire completely by accident. Watson was trying to loosen a reed that had been wound around a transmitter when he plucked it by accident. The vibration produced by that gesture traveled along the wire into a second device in the other room where Bell was working.

The "twang" Bell heard was all the inspiration that he and Watson needed to accelerate their work. They continued to work into the next year. Bell recounted the critical moment in his journal: "I then shouted into M [the mouthpiece] the following sentence: 'Mr. Watson, come here—I want to see you.' To my delight, he came and declared that he had heard and understood what I said."

The first telephone call had just been made.

The Telephone Network Is Born

Bell patented his device on March 7, 1876, and it quickly began to spread. By 1877, construction of the first regular telephone line from Boston to Somerville, Massachusetts, had been completed. By the end of 1880, there were over 49,000 telephones in the United States.   The following year, telephone service between Boston and Providence, Rhode Island, had been established. Service between New York and Chicago started in 1892 and between New York and Boston in 1894. Transcontinental service began in 1915. 

Bell founded his Bell Telephone Company in 1877. As the industry rapidly expanded, Bell quickly bought out competitors. After a series of mergers, the American Telephone and Telegraph Co.—the forerunner of today's AT&T—was incorporated in 1880. Because Bell controlled the intellectual property and patents behind the telephone system, AT&T had a de facto monopoly over the young industry. It would maintain its control over the U.S. telephone market until 1984 when a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice forced AT&T to end its control over state markets.

Exchanges and Rotary Dialing

The first regular telephone exchange was established in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1878. Early telephones were leased in pairs to subscribers. The subscriber was required to put up his own line to connect with another. In 1889, Kansas City undertaker Almon B. Strowger invented a switch that could connect one line to any of 100 lines by using relays and sliders. The Strowger switch, as it came to be known, was still in use in some telephone offices well over 100 years later.

Strowger was issued a patent on March 11, 1891, for the first automatic telephone exchange. The first exchange using the Strowger switch was opened in La Porte, Indiana, in 1892. Initially, subscribers had a button on their telephone to produce the required number of pulses by tapping. Then an associate of Strowgers' invented the rotary dial in 1896, replacing the button. In 1943, Philadelphia was the last major area to give up dual service (rotary and button).

In 1889, the coin-operated telephone was patented by William Gray of Hartford, Connecticut. Gray's payphone was first installed and used in the Hartford Bank. Unlike pay phones today, users of Gray's phone paid after they had finished their call.

Payphones proliferated along with the Bell System. By the time the first phone booths were installed in 1905, there were about 2.2 million phones; by 1980, there were more than 175 million.   But with the advent of mobile technology, the public demand for payphones rapidly declined, and today there are fewer than 500,000 still operating in the United States.  

Touch-Tone Phones

Researchers at Western Electric, AT&T's manufacturing subsidiary, had experimented with using tones rather than pulses to trigger telephone connections since the early 1940s, but it wasn't until 1963 that dual-tone multifrequency signaling, which uses the same frequency as speech, was commercially viable. AT&T introduced it as Touch-Tone dialing and it quickly became the next standard in telephone technology. By 1990, push-button phones were more common than rotary-dial models in American homes.

Cordless Phones

In the 1970s, the very first cordless phones were introduced. In 1986, the Federal Communications Commission granted the frequency range of 47 to 49 MHz for cordless phones. Granting a greater frequency range allowed cordless phones to have less interference and need less power to run. In 1990, the FCC granted the frequency range of 900 MHz for cordless phones.

In 1994, digital cordless phones were introduced, followed by digital spread spectrum (DSS) in 1995. Both developments were intended to increase the security of cordless phones and decrease unwanted eavesdropping by enabling the phone conversation to be digitally spread out. In 1998, the FCC granted the frequency range of 2.4 GHz for cordless phones; the upward range is now 5.8 GHz.

Cell Phones

The earliest mobile phones were radio-controlled units designed for vehicles. They were expensive and cumbersome, and had extremely limited range. First launched by AT&T in 1946, the network would slowly expand and become more sophisticated, but it never was widely adopted. By 1980, it had been replaced by the first cellular networks.

Research on what would become the cellular phone network used today began in 1947 at Bell Labs, the research wing of AT&T. Although the radio frequencies needed were not yet commercially available, the concept of connecting phones wirelessly through a network of "cells" or transmitters was a viable one. Motorola introduced the first hand-held cellular phone in 1973.

Telephone Books

The first telephone book was published in New Haven, Connecticut, by the New Haven District Telephone Company in February 1878. It was one page long and held 50 names; no numbers were listed, as an operator would connect you. The page was divided into four sections: residential, professional, essential services, and miscellaneous.

In 1886, Reuben H. Donnelly produced the first Yellow Pages-branded directory featuring business names and phone numbers, categorized by the types of products and services provided. By the 1980s, telephone books, whether issued by the Bell System or private publishers, were in nearly every home and business. But with the advent of the Internet and of cell phones, telephone books have been rendered largely obsolete. 

Prior to 1968, there was no dedicated phone number for reaching first responders in the event of an emergency. That changed after a congressional investigation led to calls for the establishment of such a system nationwide. The Federal Communications Commission and AT&T soon announced they would launch their emergency network in Indiana, using the digits 9-1-1 (chosen for its simplicity and for being easy to remember).

But a small independent phone company in rural Alabama decided to beat AT&T at its own game. On Feb. 16, 1968, the first 9-1-1 call was placed in Hayleyville, Alabama, at the office of the Alabama Telephone Company. The 9-1-1 network would be introduced to other cities and towns slowly; it wasn't until 1987 that at least half of all American homes had access to a 9-1-1 emergency network.

Several researchers created devices for identifying the number of incoming calls, including scientists in Brazil, Japan, and Greece, starting in the late 1960s. In the U.S., AT&T first made its trademarked TouchStar caller ID service available in Orlando, Florida, in 1984. Over the next several years, the regional Bell Systems would introduce caller ID services in the Northeast and Southeast. Although the service was initially sold as a pricey added service, caller ID today is a standard function found on every cell phone and available on almost any landline.

Additional Resources

• Casson, Herbert N. The History of the Telephone. Chicago: A.C. McClurg & Co., 1910.

"1870s to 1940s - Telephone." Imagining the Internet: a History and Forecast. Elon University School of Communications.

Kieler, Ashlee. “5 Things We Learned About Pay Phones & Why They Continue To Exist.”   Consumerist , 26 Apr. 2016.

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The Invention of the Telephone, Essay Example

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The paper discusses the invention of the telephone and its role in history. The conditions in which the creation of the telephone took place are discussed. The paper evaluates the contribution and influence of the telephone to the economic development and globalization. The aim of the paper is to discuss the evolution of the telephone and the effects of this evolution on society.

The 19 th century was marked with a number of revolutionary inventions, of which the telephone was, probably, the most significant. A complex device that let people transmit voice messages electrically became a revolution communication technologies and the principal driver of the technological progress on the planet. Modern society cannot exist without the telephone. Cellular phones and pocket communication solutions make it easier to contact anyone, at any time and in any part of the globe. Telephone lines turned the world into a complex web of connections. The contribution of the telephone to the economic development and globalization is difficult to underestimate. Today, the telephone is an ever evolving technology, which shows no limits to improvement and can meet the most sophisticated communication needs.

Telephone: Inventing a Revolution

In 1875, when the telegraph was the most sophisticated communication technology in the world, a young professor in a machine shop not far from Scollay Square was desperately trying to launch an unknown machine (Casson, 2007). The machine was actually a combination of crude harmonica, a magnet, a clock-spring reed, and a wire (Casson, 2007). The young man did not notice the heat of the workshop and was completely absorbed by the technical toy too unlike anything every produced in his country (Casson, 2007). Before that crucial day in the middle of 1875, the professor had spent more than three years working on his device; finally, the sound TWANG marked a new stage in the technological and human development (Casson, 2007).

The TWANG sound was the first tiny shout of the newly born telephone (Casson, 2007). “Amidst flying belts and jarring wheels, the baby telephone was born, as feeble and helpless as any other baby, and with no language but a cry” (Casson, 2007, p. 5). The name of the professor was Alexander Graham Bell, and the invention of the telephone forever carved his name into the history of the human technical progress. Bell was the teacher of acoustics and a student in electricity, and worked hard to create a device that would let people transmit voice messages at a distance (Casson, 2007). It should be noted, that no discovery had ever been less accidental than the telephone (Casson, 2007). The invention of the telephone was the result of Bell’s persistent work and deliberate search (Casson, 2007). Bell had known the exact theory of the telephone months before his discovery, and all he had to do was to realize his theory in practice (Casson, 2007). Bell’s only mistake was in underestimating the efficiency of electricity in transmitting speech, but undulatory current generated by a small magnet finally brought Bell to his technical and creative triumph (Casson, 2007).

On March 7, 1876, the U.S. Patent Office granted Bell the most valuable patent ever issued (Coe, 2006). The title of the patent was “Improvement in Telegraphy” and had to secure for its inventor the basic principles of a telephone (Coe, 2006). The first telephone transmission that sounded “Mr. Watson, come here, I want you!” took place on March 10, 1876 and became the starting point in the subsequent chain of bigger and smaller telephone revolutions (Coe, 2006). At that time, the telephone was nothing but a liquid contact transmitter with a needle that dipped into a small cup of water with acid (Coe, 2006). The needle was attached to the diaphragm that made the needle vibrate in accordance with the speech vibrations (Coe, 2006). The vibrating needle changed the resistance of the electric circuit and, as a result, the undulating current needed for the speech transmission to be established (Coe, 2006). The first telephone offered to the public was represented by a single magnetic unit which fulfilled the functions of both the transmitter and the receiver (Coe, 2006). To carry the device from ear to mouth and back was absolutely inconvenient for users. Nevertheless, Bell, more than anyone else, realized the unbelievable potential of the telephone to foster the human progress.

The telephone was invented when telegraph was the dominant player in the telecommunications industry. In 1876, almost 215,000 miles of telegraph wires carried more than 30,000,000 messages through more than 8,000 telegraph offices (Ronell, 1991). At that time, people did not realize that telephony could present them with a unique advantage, combining the speed of telegraph and the human voice instead of traditional cryptic dashes and dots (Ronell, 1991). The first telephone was too radical and too unexpected for the public to immediately grasp its significance. Even the President of Western Union could not fully understand the extraordinary technical possibilities of the telephone (Ronell, 1991). History says that the President of Western Union refused to buy out Bell’s patent for $100,000 and to monopolize the telecommunications industry, because he did not even imagine how they could use that electric toy (Ronell, 1991). Just a century later, the telephone became a universal communication solution, but it took almost a decade for the 19 th century’s society to understand the significance of the invention and to make use of it (Ronell, 1991). Not only did Bell have to invent the telephone, but he faced a difficult task to explain the meaning of his invention to the public and to spread the message that the telephone would change the lives of millions on the planet. People continued to confuse telegraph with the telephone (Ronell, 1991). Bell, however, did not have any doubts about the unbelievable future of his invention. He envisioned miles of telephone lines and cables that would unite private dwellings, shops and country houses, businesses and manufactories into one single web of telephone connections, would allow establishing direct communications between any two parts of the city and would let a man communicate with any other person in a different place (Ronell, 1991).

The Invention of the Telephone: Evolution and Contribution

Many years have passed since the moment Bell made the first telephone call. Today, telephones are dramatically different from the way they used to be a century ago. Bell’s telephone could carry a signal at a distance of 20 miles at most, but the invention of the carbon microphone improved significantly the quality of the transmission (Ronell, 1991). By the end of the 19 th century, the multiplexing technology increased the transmission capacity of the telephone lines, while the development of the switchboard gave AT&T the monopolistic advantage in the telecommunications industry (Ronell, 1991). In 1927, the first radio telephone link was used to create a long distance service between the U.S. and England (Ronell, 1991). Since 1950, microwave stations could process almost 20,000 calls at the same time (Ronell, 1991). 1962 was the beginning of the digital transmission; in 1970, the first fiber optics cable was used instead of copper lines (Ronell, 1991). Modern telephones are more than a device for transmitting voice conversations. Telephones comprise numerous functions, including faxes, modems, and voice conferences. Cellular technology expands mobile telecommunication opportunities. A number of available frequencies are used to ensure that the lines can support all conversations as soon as the telephone is activated (Ronell, 1991).

The contribution of the telephone to globalization and economic development is difficult to underestimate. Hardy (1980) writes that the telephone became the turning point in the rapid economic development for a number of countries. The telephone became one of the primary globalization drivers; rapid improvements in communication technologies foster exchange of ideas and information which contribute to connectivity and create a complex web of relationships between individuals and businesses around the globe. Today, the telephone is an indispensable component of daily routine. Despite its technological sophistication, there is still much room for improvement. The telephone is a technology which shows no limits to technological advancement and will continue to change, to meet the ever growing human needs for better communication.

The telephone became one out of many revolutionary inventions in the 19 th century. However, no other invention and device ever made a contribution to the human technological and economic progress close to that of the telephone. The telephone marked the beginning of the new stage in human evolution. The telephone turned the planet into a complex web of relationships and connections. Today, the telephone much different from the way it looked a century ago. Nevertheless, it is the technology that shows no limits to improvement and will continue to change, to meet the ever growing human needs for better communication.

Casson, H.N. (2007). The history of the telephone. Echo Library.

Coe, L. (2006). The telephone and its several inventors: A history. New York: McFarland.

Hardy, A.P. (1980). The role of the telephone in economic development. Telecommunications  Policy, 4, 4, 278-286.

Ronell, A. (1991). The telephone book: Technology, schizophrenia, electric speech. University of Nebraska Press.

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The Birth of the Telephone: Tracing the First Phone’s Origins

This essay about the evolution of the telephone, from its inception by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876 to its modern-day wireless forms. It explores the contributions of Bell and other inventors, the technological advancements that shaped telephonic communication, and the ongoing evolution of communication modalities. Reflecting on collaborative efforts and inventive prowess, the essay highlights the transformative impact of the telephone on human interconnectivity throughout history.

How it works

The advent of the telephonic apparatus heralded a seismic shift in human discourse, compressing vast distances and reshaping interpersonal connections. Yet, the precise genesis of the inaugural telephone and its attributions remain subjects of intrigue and scholarly discourse. The genesis of the telephonic invention unveils a saga replete with ingenuity, tenacity, and occasional contention, unfurling against the backdrop of the 19th century’s fervent pursuit to harness electrical telegraphic capabilities for vocal transmission.

Alexander Graham Bell, widely lauded as the progenitor of the maiden practical telephone, secured its patent in the annus mirabilis of 1876.

Bell’s oeuvre bore the indelible imprints of his scholarly lineage, steeped in the realms of speech and auditory sciences. Born into a pedigree engrossed in the pedagogy of oration, Bell harbored a profound fascination with sonorous dissemination via electronic conduits. Following his transatlantic voyage from Caledonia to the Americas, he undertook pedagogic endeavors for the aurally challenged in the precincts of Boston, concurrently conducting telegraphic experiments during interstices.

His seminal brainstorming engendered the conceptualization of a “harmonic telegraph,” envisaging the concurrent transmission of myriad missives through disparate frequencies over a solitary wire. This visionary concept germinated the seminal work on vocal transmission. Following protracted endeavors and iterative trials, Bell, aided by his associate Thomas Watson, consummated a watershed moment on March 10, 1876, transmitting a succinct yet epochal directive: “Mr. Watson, come here; I want to see you.”

This inaugural telephonic colloquy heralded a watershed moment, enshrining Bell’s indelible legacy with a patent filed mere hours anterior to a rival inventor, Elisha Gray, proffering a cognate contrivance. Notwithstanding the ensuing legal imbroglio over patent claims, Bell’s innovation emerged as a paradigmatic game-changer. By the denouement of 1877, he had established the Bell Telephone Company, propelling the telephone into an indispensable bastion of commercial and domestic purview.

While Bell basks in the limelight of attribution, ancillary luminaries lent credence to the refinement and propulsion of telephonic technology. Elisha Gray, despite missing the patent laurels by a whisker, contributed substantially to telecommunication pedagogy through his telegraphic explorations. Antonio Meucci, an Italian émigré, fashioned a rudimentary blueprint for a vocal communication apparatus as early as the 1850s, though financial exigencies precluded the fruition of patenting endeavors. In a posthumous accolade in 2002, the U.S. Congress paid homage to Meucci’s antecedent contributions, venerating his pioneering forays in this domain.

The telephonic apparatus underwent meteoric metamorphosis in the aftermath of Bell’s inception, spurred by the cauldron of industrial metamorphosis and urban sprawl. The nascent telephone manifested as a rudimentary contrivance necessitating direct vocal projection into the transmitter and auditory apprehension through the receiver. Primal telephonic avatars lacked auditory indicators, necessitating vociferous appeals to operators for connectivity, who effectuated manual liaison to the designated conduit.

The evolutionary trajectory of telephonic technology wrought manifold enhancements, rendering telephonic utilization more facile and pervasive. Automatic switchboards and rotary telephones obviated operator dependencies, while innovations in material science conferred lighter and sturdier handsets. By the midpoint of the 20th century, rotary dial telephony became de rigueur in domiciliary quarters, and intercontinental communique became quotidian.

The latter hemisphere of the 20th century witnessed the ascendance of touch-tone telephony and the inception of wireless paradigms. Embryonic mobile telephony emerged in the 1980s, albeit plagued by bulk, fiscal encumbrance, and spatial constraints. The advent of digital technology and cellular infrastructure wrought transformative change, transmogrifying contemporary mobile devices into multifarious implements transcending mere vocal transmission.

Reflection upon the annals of telephonic saga bespeaks a narrative not predicated upon solitary authorship, but a crescendo of collaborative epistemology and inventive prowess. Alexander Graham Bell’s patent triumph may have ensconced his legacy, yet the odyssey to the inaugural telephone was an opus of myriad inventors, engineers, and technicians. In the contemporary milieu, as communication modalities continue their inexorable evolution, the spirit of cooperative endeavor and imaginative fecundity that birthed the telephone persists as an indispensable harbinger in sculpting the panorama of human interconnectivity.

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Home — Essay Samples — Science — Telephone — Invention of Telephone

Invention of Telephone

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Published: Aug 24, 2023

Words: 624 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

Table of contents

Introduction: the birth of a game-changing invention, the journey to invention: alexander graham bell's eureka moment, from theory to reality: the birth of the telephone, impact on communication: bridging distances and connecting lives, societal and economic transformation, challenges and innovations, telephony's continued evolution: from landlines to smartphones, conclusion: the timeless legacy of the telephone.

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The Complete History of Phones from the Last 500 Years

Today, mobile phones fit in the palm of our hands, and laptops fit in our bags, making communication seem compact and accessible. But, the history of phones goes way back.

Teenagers today may not have experienced this, but in the olden days, before the time of the convenient handheld mobile phone, telephones had cords and antennas.

Telephone systems were usually entirely analog devices with little digital screens. At that time, no one imagined that digital cordless phones would come and take over the market.

Just like cell phones did not come out of anywhere, the telephone system has a series of predecessors too.

Here is a brief history of the telephone, beginning from the earliest forms of audio transmission to the invention of the first cell phone:

Table of Contents

The History of Phones: The Earliest Audio Communication Devices

With the industrial revolution in full swing and wars becoming increasingly mechanical, it was only a matter of time before someone came along with the idea of audio transmission.

There are a few devices that preceded and, consequently, led to the invention of the telephone:

Mechanical Devices

Mechanical and acoustic devices for the transmission of speech and music go back a long way. As far back as the 17th century, people were experimenting with pipes, strings, and similar media to transmit sound.

The earliest examples of this phenomenon were acoustic in nature like the tin can telephone.

Tin Can Telephone

A tin can telephone network was a rudimentary speech-transmitting device. If we can do away with the fancy words , it was just two cans or paper cups attached by a string.

The sound from one end would be converted into solid vibrations, also known as mechanical telephony, travel through the string and be converted back into audible sound.

Today, tin can telephones are used in science classes to demonstrate the role of vibrations in producing sound.

In the 17th century, Robert Hooke was known for conducting such experiments. He is also credited for creating an acoustic phone in 1667.

Tin can phones, or their later models, known as the lover’s telephone, were marketed in competition with the electrical telephone service in the late 19th century.

It was obviously hard to compete against a more sophisticated product and so, acoustic telephone companies quickly went out of business.

Speaking Tube

A speaking tube is exactly what it sounds like: two cones connected by an air pipe. It can transmit speech over long distances.

The father of empiricism and an influential figure of the Scientific Revolution that preceded the Enlightenment, Francis Bacon was responsible for suggesting the use of pipes for transmitting speech.

Speaking tubes were used in intra-ship communications, military aircraft, expensive automobiles, and expensive homes. But, it was another one of those gimmicky technologies that could not sustain its market against the roaring progress of the telephone.

Electrical Telegraph

An electrical telegraph was almost like the first telephone service in the world. But, it did not send and receive calls. It communicated messages.

So, it was basically the world’s first SMS service.

The precursor to the cell phone in some ways, the electrical telegraph was a point-to-point messaging system.

On the sending side, switches would control the flow of current to telegraph wires. The receiving device would use an electromagnetic charge to form the representation of the sent information.

One of the first practical applications of electrical engineering, it existed in various forms. In its two most popular forms, it existed as a needle telegraph and as a telegraph sounder.

All of these technologies remained – to some extent – in commercial use until the electrical telephone came along.

Who Invented the Telephone?

People often begin the history of the telephone with Alexander Graham Bell. It’s not a bad place to start. But, what would you say if I told you that it was not Alexander Graham Bell who created the first telephone?

At least, not technically.

Quite often, tracking the original inventor of a new device can be quite tricky. The history of the telephone is certainly one such instance.

It has remained a controversial topic over the years, garnering much attention from historians and scholars. Books, research articles, and court cases have tried to solve this puzzle to no avail.

Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone was the first patented model of a series of similar inventions. It’s fine to call him the “father of the telephone,” but let us not forget others, who toiled their blood and sweat to push technology forward.

Antonio Meucci

The printing press was one of the greatest inventions in human history until the arrival of the cell phone . It served as the prime form of formal communication within a society. That changed with the arrival of telegraphs.

But, people had been sending and receiving letters for the longest of time.

One guy thought that paper was far too slow and inefficient. Why not develop a device that could get over these barriers? Such a device would be quicker and be able to communicate intonation, instead of implying it.

An Italian innovator, Antonio Meucci , had just this idea. He wanted to create a simpler and more efficient way of long-distance communication. So, he started working on developing a design for a talking telegraph. He is now credited with creating the first basic phone in 1849.

Charles Bourseul

Born in Belgium and raised in France, Charles Boursel worked as an engineer for a telegraph company. He made improvements to existing models of the telegraph before deciding to experiment with electrical systems.

He was able to transmit speech electrically by creating an electromagnetic telephone. Unfortunately, his receiving device was unable to convert the electric signal back into clear, audible sounds.

He also wrote a memorandum on the transmission of human speech by using an electric current. He published the article in a Paris magazine. Meucci claimed his first attempt to make a telephone came shortly afterward.

Johann Phillip Reis

Phillip Reis was instrumental in the invention of the telephone. In 1861, he created a device that captured the sound and converted it into electrical impulses. These would, then, travel through wires and reach the receiver.

Reis called his microphone “the singing station” since he wanted to invent a device for broadcasting music. A patent dispute ensued in which Thomas Edison came out on top, despite having made the device after Reis.

Thomas Edison used the ideas provided by Reis to develop his carbon microphone. About Reis, he said :

The first inventor of a telephone was Phillip Reis of Germany [. . .]. The first person to publicly exhibit a telephone for transmission of articulate speech was A. G. Bell. The first practical commercial telephone for transmission of articulate speech was invented by myself. Telephones used throughout the world are mine and Bell’s. Mine is used for transmitting. Bell’s is used for receiving.

Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison is a popular name, known primarily for his contributions to introducing a lightbulb . But, Thomas was less of an inventor and more of an entrepreneur, who was often more interested in gathering novel things than inventing them.

For instance, his contributions to the electric light often spark much controversy when compared to the work of Nikola Tesla . But, like in his other inventions, he did add important flourishes to the final, practical product.

When it comes to the carbon microphone, he was experimenting with it at the same time when David Edward Hughes was working on transmitters and “the microphone effect” and Emile Berliner was working on a loose-contact transmitter. All three of them based their works on the study of Phillip Reis.

David Edward Hughes

David Edward Hughes was the real force behind the invention of the carbon microphone, even though Edison took all the credit. Hughes had demonstrated his device to the members of the public and most people consider him the “real” inventor of the carbon microphone.

Hughes chose not to take out a patent. He wanted his gift to be a gift to the world. On the other side of the world, in the US, both Edison and Emile Berliner competed in a race for acquiring the patent.

When Edison won the patent, he was officially credited with the invention of the microphone, even though the word itself was coined by Hughes. The microphones we use today are direct heirs of the carbon microphone.

Elisha Gray

Before we get to Bell, here is another significant name to add to the list: Elisha Gray.

Elisha Grey was the co-founder of the Western Electric Manufacturing Company and is remembered for the development of the telephone prototype in the late 1800s. This was a few years after Alexander Graham Bell obtained the patent for telephone technology.

Here’s the catch: there have been several allegations that Bell stole the idea of a liquid transmitter from Elisha, who had been experimenting with and using them for years.

This entire matter is shrouded in controversy and some people claim that Elisha Grey should be credited for the invention of the telephone. After many legal battles, courts have mostly favored Bell.

Alexander Graham Bell

And, so we finally get to Alexander Graham Bell, the man who went to the patent office and, supposedly, influenced the people there to grant him the patent before others.

Bell patented the phone as an “apparatus for transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically.”

Both Antonio Meucci and Phillip Reis were the foremost pioneers but they were unable to make a complete device that performed in all practical arenas. Alexander Graham Bell’s device, on the other hand, could be seen as the first practical telephone.

The claims and counterclaims regarding the invention of early telephones abound, only the patents of Bell and Edison are commercially decisive. The zeitgeist flowers Bell with all the praise.

The telephone started evolving from this point forward. All forms of the modern telephone can be traced back to the inventions of all the aforementioned gentlemen.

When Was the Telephone Invented?

It depends on what you consider the “invention of the telephone.”

The Analog Devices

The earliest form of the mechanical telephone, the one invented by Robert Hooke, was made in 1667. In 1672, Francis Bacon suggested the use of pipes for transmitting sound. In 1782, a French monk, Dom Gauthey, started experimenting with Francis’ idea.

The First Telegraphs

The first working telegraph was made in 1816 by an English inventor, Francis Ronalds. Baron Schilling made an electromagnetic telegraph in 1832, followed by Carl Friedrich Gauss and Wilhelm Weber in 1883, who made a different electromagnetic telegraph.

The First Telephones

By improving all these devices, we eventually got to the telephone in the mid-19th century. Antonio Meucci constructed his telephone-like device during the years 1849-1854. 1854 is also the year in which Charles Bourseul wrote his memorandum on the transmission of sound.

Reis constructed his first prototype in the year 1862, a few years before Bell would perfect the design. His work was presented in the United States in 1872, where it started to pique the interest of entrepreneurs and engineers.

David Edward Hughes invented his carbon microphone in 1878 in England . Thomas Edison and Emile Berliner followed suit in the US. Interestingly, Edison was awarded the patent for the microphone in 1877, but Hughes had demonstrated his device much earlier but took the time to work out the kinks.

Elisha Gray made his telephone in 1876, the same year as Alexander Graham Bell. Here is where the story gets interesting.

Gray had signed the documents, had them notarized, and submitted them to the US Patent Office on the 14th of February, 1876. The very same morning, Bell’s lawyer submitted a patent application. Whose application arrived first was contested. Gray believed that his application had reached the offices before Bell’s application.

The Patent Drama

According to one account, Bell’s lawyer found out about Gray’s device and his lawyer’s intention of delivering the application on the morning of the 14th. He then added similar claims to Bell’s application and delivered it to the office. It reached the office at noon. Gray’s application had made its way to the office in the morning.

Well then, how was Bell awarded the patent?

Bell’s lawyer hustled to get the application to submit the application on the same day, so he could later claim that it had arrived first – since the record would show that both applications had arrived on the same day. Bell was away during this period of time and in all probability, could not have known that his application had been filed.

The examiner was annoyed at the issue and suspended Bell’s application for 90 days. During this time, Bell was informed of the situation and he resumed his work. After the mess of all the legalities and technicalities, the examiner noted that:

. . . while Gray was undoubtedly the first to conceive of and disclose the [variable resistance] invention, as in his caveat of February 14, 1876, his failure to take any action amounting to completion until others had demonstrated the utility of the invention deprives him of the right to have it considered.

The entire incident did not sit well with Gray, who challenged Bell’s claims. Two years of litigation yielded nothing but disappointment for him as Bell was awarded the rights to the telephone. Alexander Graham Bell was the official inventor of the telephone.

The First Telephone Call

The first telephone call was made by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876 when he said the words:

“Mr [Thomas] Watson, come here. I want to see you.”

Evolution of the Telephone

A mobile phone is a cool little gadget, but it took a long time to make the first cellular phone. Charting the progress from electrical telephones to cell phones is certainly no easy task. But, let’s try it, anyway.

Get ready for a lot of firsts as we look at some of the most important innovations along the way:

The First Permanent Outdoor Telephone Wire

The first permanent outdoor telephone wire was placed in Nevada County, California in 1877. It was 97km long and was operated by the Ridge Telephone Company.

Along with the rise of the commercial telephone service phenomenon, outdoor wiring helped the telephone network become increasingly dense.

The Arrival of the Telephone Service

By the time, the telephone was available as a product, electrical telegraphs were already a common phenomenon. Stock exchanges, governmental institutions, large corporations, and the homes of the elite class already employed and used them.

The underlying structure and network of the telegraph systems allowed the telephone networks to easily map themselves according to the existing schema.

Telephones had already arrived in the market and were being used. But, they had to be connected directly, which of course, restricted their use in a major fashion. All of this had to change, and change it did, with the arrival of the telephone exchange.

By 1877, Friedrichsberg near Berlin had a commercial telephone company, the first one of its kind.

The Telephone Exchange

The telephone exchange was a big deal at the time. It was single-handedly responsible for the commercial rise of telephone technology.

A telephone exchange connects individual subscriber lines, enabling users to connect with each other. It was a web of sorts: all paths led here. Calls would arrive here and the operators would forward them to the desired receiver.

This idea was the brainchild of a Hungarian engineer, Tivadar Puskas. When Bell invented the telephone or claimed to have done so, Puskas was working on his idea of an exchange.

“Tivadar Puskas was the first person to suggest the idea of a telephone exchange,” claimed Thomas Edison, with whom Puskas started working shortly afterward.

Based on Puskas’ ideas, the Bell Telephone Company built the first exchange in 1877 – thanks to George W. Coy, Herrick P. Frost, and Walter Lewis -, and Puskas set up one in Paris, a couple of years later. The former is often considered the first telephone exchange in the world. Before you know it, commercial telephone service became a thing.

Puskas later developed the technology for “Telephone News Service” and was awarded a patent in 1892. His model was the precursor to the radio .

The First Transcontinental Telephone Line

The first long-distance call took place in 1915. A transcontinental telephone line was placed for this purpose between New York City and San Francisco.

Graham Bell placed the call from 15 Dey Street and it was received at 333 Grant Avenue by his former assistant and colleague, Thomas Watson.

The transcontinental telephone line linked the Atlantic seaboard with the West Coast. It is generally referred to as the New York-San Francisco line.

The First Transatlantic Telephone Line

Transatlantic telephone cables were placed to take the idea of a local telephone network to the global level.

This was, by no means, the first remote transatlantic communication. Transatlantic telegraphs had existed before. But, once the transatlantic telephone cables were installed, there was no need for telegraphs anymore.

The first transatlantic call took place between the President of the company now known as AT&T, Walter S. Gifford, and the head of the British General Post Office, Sir Evelyn P. Murray.

The Humble Beginnings of the Mobile Phone

The cell phone is a fairly modern invention, but its roots go back to the early years of the 20th century, the first mobile phone service started appearing in German railway systems. In 1924, Zugtelephonie AG was founded and they started supplying telephone equipment for use in trains. By 1926, mobile telephone systems were being used by Deutsche Reichsbahn in Germany.

Instead of hampering the progress of mobile technology, the Second World War quickened it. With the increased military urgency, there were many advances in mobile communications. Gradually, military vehicles started using two-way radios to coordinate their movements and plans.

After the war, vehicles like railroad trains, taxicabs, and police cruisers started using two-way mobile communication systems. Companies in US and Europe were offering these large systems. They were large, power-hungry devices that were not exactly practical.

From here, small advances would take us to the inevitable launch of the first cell phone.

Mobile Phone Networks

AT&T’s Bell Labs introduced a mobile service in 1946, which was commercialized by 1949 as the Mobile Telephone Service.

The First Handheld Mobile Phone

In 1973, Motorola built the first cell phone. Martin Cooper and his team beat Bell Labs to the punch and stepped into a news conference to unveil the product. The product would go on to revolutionize communication in the next couple of decades.

The DynaTAC 8000x, although demonstrated earlier, came out a decade later and the rest is history.

We could go on to discuss digital cordless phones, the first tri-band GSM phone, the first camera phone, the first touchscreen phone, and several other firsts in the world of cellular phones, such as the first Android phone and the first iPhone .

The history of the telephone is a messy web of separate incidents and narratives, all of which happen to intersect and coincide in a unique fashion. From the controversy surrounding the first telephone to the development of the telephone network, all offer an insight into the minds of the pioneers who helped shape the modern understanding of our world.

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Alexander Graham Bell

By: History.com Editors

Updated: April 25, 2024 | Original: November 9, 2009

Alexander Graham Bell, best known for his invention of the telephone, revolutionized communication as we know it. His interest in sound technology was deep-rooted and personal, as both his wife and mother were deaf. While there’s some controversy over whether Bell was the true pioneer of the telephone, he secured exclusive rights to the technology and launched the Bell Telephone Company in 1877. Ultimately, the talented scientist held more than 18 patents for his inventions and work in communications.

Alexander Graham Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland , on March 3, 1847. Bell’s father was a professor of speech elocution at the University of Edinburgh and his mother, despite being deaf, was an accomplished pianist.

Young Alexander was an intellectually curious child who studied piano and began inventing things at an early age. Both of his brothers passed away from tuberculosis by the time Bell was in his early twenties.

Initially, Bell’s education consisted of homeschooling. Bell didn’t excel academically, but he was a problem solver from an early age.

When he was just 12, the young Alexander invented a device with rotating paddles and nail brushes that could quickly remove husks from wheat grain to help improve a farming process. At age 16, Bell began studying the mechanics of speech.

He went on to attend Royal High School and the University of Edinburgh. In 1870, Bell, along with his family, moved to Canada. The following year, he settled in the United States.

While in the United States, Bell implemented a system his father developed to teach deaf children called “visible speech”—a set of symbols that represented speech sounds.

In 1872, he opened the School of Vocal Physiology and Mechanics of Speech in Boston , where deaf people were taught to speak. At age 26, the budding inventor became Professor of Vocal Physiology and Elocution at the Boston University School of Oratory, even though he didn’t have a university degree.

While teaching, Bell met Mabel Hubbard, a deaf student. The couple married on July 11, 1877. They went on to have four children, including two sons who died as infants.

When Was the Telephone Invented?

In 1871, Bell started working on the harmonic telegraph — a device that allowed multiple messages to be transmitted over a wire at the same time. While trying to perfect this technology, which was backed by a group of investors, Bell became preoccupied with finding a way to transmit human voice over wires.

By 1875, Bell, with the help of his partner Thomas Watson , had come up with a simple receiver that could turn electricity into sound.

Other scientists, including Antonio Meucci and Elisha Gray , were working on similar technologies, and there’s some debate over who should be credited with the invention of the telephone. It’s said that Bell raced to the patent office to be the first to secure the rights to the discovery.

On March 7, 1876, Bell was granted his telephone patent . A few days later, he made the first-ever telephone call to Watson, allegedly uttering the now-famous phrase, “Mr. Watson, come here. I want you.”

By 1877, the Bell Telephone Company, which today is known as AT&T , was created. In 1915, Bell made the first transcontinental phone call to Watson from New York City to San Francisco .

Did you know? Alexander Graham Bell refused to have a telephone in his study, fearing it would distract him from his scientific work.

Legal Headaches

The inventor faced a nearly 20-year legal battle with other scientists, including Gray and Meucci, who claimed they created telephone prototypes prior to Bell’s patent.

In 1887, the U.S. government moved to withdraw the patent issued to Bell, but after a series of rulings, the Bell company won in a Supreme Court decision. While the Bell Company faced over 550 court challenges, in the end, none were successful.

Inventions and Accomplishments

In addition to the telephone, Bell worked on hundreds of projects throughout his career and received patents in various fields. Some of his other notable inventions were:

• The metal detector: Bell initially came up with this device to locate a bullet inside of assassinated President James A. Garfield .
• Photophone: The photophone allowed transmission of speech on a beam of light.
• Graphophone: This improved version of the phonograph could record and play back sound.
• Audiometer: This gadget was used to detect hearing problems.

In 1880, Bell was awarded the French Volta Prize , and with the money, he founded a facility devoted to scientific discovery, the Volta Laboratory in Washington, D.C.

Bell invented numerous techniques to help teach speech to the deaf and even worked with well-known author and activist Helen Keller . He also helped launch Science magazine , and from 1896 to 1904 served as president of the National Geographic Society .

Quotes by Bell

While Bell is typically known for what he invented, he’s also remembered for what he said and wrote. Some famous quotes attributed to Bell include:

• “When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.”

• “A man's own judgment should be the final appeal in all that relates to himself.”

• “Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.”

• “Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to focus.”

• “Great discoveries and improvements invariably involve the cooperation of many minds.”

• “The most successful men in the end are those whose success is the result of steady accretion.”

• “The only difference between success and failure is the ability to take action.”

• “You cannot force ideas. Successful ideas are the result of slow growth.”

• “The inventor looks upon the world and is not contented with things as they are. He wants to improve whatever he sees, he wants to benefit the world; he is haunted by an idea. The spirit of invention possesses him, seeking materialization.”

HISTORY Vault: Alexander Graham Bell: Voice Of Invention

The remarkable story of the man whose driving passion—to enable the deaf to communicate—led to the invention of the telephone.

Death and Legacy

Bell died on August 2, 1922, at the age of 75 in Nova Scotia, Canada. The cause of his death was complications from diabetes. He was survived by his wife and two daughters.

During Bell’s funeral, every phone in North America was silenced to pay tribute to the inventor.

Today, the famous scientist is remembered for his groundbreaking work in sound technology and improving education for the deaf. His best-known invention, the telephone, forever changed the way humans communicate with each other.

Alexander Graham Bell. PBS . History: Alexander Graham Bell. BBC . Alexander Graham Bell. Famous Scientists . Who is credited with inventing the telephone? Library of Congress .

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By Lucy Davis

The telephone revolutionized communications by allowing messages to be transmitted instantly to nearly anywhere in the world. Following the public debut of the device at the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, Philadelphia became home to many of telephony’s milestones and a center of telephone innovation, promoted by pioneers and supporters including inventor Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) and retail magnate John Wanamaker (1838-1922). The city continued to serve a unique role in telecommunications through the twentieth century with the introduction of the first wireless telephone and the first computer-regulated commercial wireless system.

Before the telephone, long- distance messages could only be rapidly transmitted by telegraph. Invented in 1844 by Samuel Morse (1791-1872), telegraphs used converted messages into Morse Code, which represented letters with a series of short and long taps, conveyed on a transmitting device. Telegraphs became wildly popular, especially with businesses because they provided a written record when the messages were transcribed onto paper. But telegraph technology was not without problems. In addition to requiring operators to be fluent in Morse Code to quickly transcribe messages, only one message could be sent over a single wire at a time. This flaw could delay urgent messages, and several inventors in the latter half of the nineteenth century sought a solution.

Among the inventors seeking to improve the telegraph, Elisha Gray (1835-1901), an Ohio-based electrical engineer, also discovered a method of transmitting voice over wire using a liquid transmitter. On February 14, 1876, Gray filed a caveat (a legal notice of intent to patent) for his device. Coincidentally, just hours before, Scottish-born teacher for the deaf Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) filed a patent for a remarkably similar invention.

Patent Wars

Bell’s invention made its public debut at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition , where prototypes were installed at opposite ends of Machinery Hall. After much adjustment, Bell demonstrated the device by reciting lines from Hamlet. Among the many to be amazed by this new technology, Emperor Dom Pedro II of Brazil (1825-91) reportedly exclaimed, “My God! It talks!” Less impressed was Elisha Gray, who took Bell and his assistants to court over purported patent violations. No technology similar to the liquid transmitter used in Bell’s functioning prototype existed in his notes until March 1876, after Gray filed his caveat. Nonetheless, Bell was awarded the patent and continued to improve on his new device and protect it from would-be competitors.

Philadelphia gained its first private telephone line for practical use in 1877, when Thomas E. Cornish (1838-1924), an electronics supply dealer, founded the Telephone Company of Philadelphia at the request of Pennsylvania Railroad president Thomas A. Scott (1823-1881), who wanted a telephone line installed directly between his home and office. The company and the line were both quickly purchased by Bell. The renamed Bell Telephone Company of Philadelphia established its first headquarters at Fourth and Chestnut Streets.

The first fully functioning switchboard was installed at 1111 Chestnut Street that same year. By then, the telephone was sufficiently developed to allow intercity phone calls, the first of which was made between Philadelphia and New York City. Even more extraordinary, the sound transmitted was not speech but music. Listeners in New York’s Steinway Hall heard pianist Frederick Boscowitz performing in the Philadelphia headquarters of Western Union at Tenth and Chestnut Streets.

The relationship between Bell and Western Union quickly soured, however. Shortly after Bell filed his patents, he had offered them for $100,000 to Western Union, which held a monopoly on telegraph transmission in the United States. Western Union declined, failing to see the commercial viability of such a device. When Bell’s invention proved popular and Bell was unwilling to sell, Western Union hired Thomas Edison (1847-1931) to circumvent Bell’s patent by making slight adjustments to the telephone. Bell sued Western Union for patent infringement, and in 1879 Western Union conceded the patent rights to Bell, creating a monopoly on the telephone industry that lasted for more than a decade.

Early Adopters

Retail magnate John Wanamaker , a prominent early adopter of the telephone, had a telephone installed in his “Grand Depot” at Thirteenth and Chestnut Streets as early as 1879. By 1906, the store had a telephone ordering system, the first of its kind to allow customers to call in orders. Wanamaker’s system distinguished itself from competitors by allowing customers to order items from the New York City Wanamaker’s store and have then delivered to the Philadelphia location. The service was initially only available to residents of Philadelphia and its suburbs. On December 30, 1911, a special long- distance telephone device allowed customers in the New York Wanamaker’s store to hear the grand opening ceremonies for the new Philadelphia store , including a performance of the “Triumphal March” from the opera Aida on the famed Wanamaker Organ .

Other early adopters of the telephone included businessmen, physicians, and druggists, who valued the instantaneous nature of telephone transactions. But home and personal use remained low until well into the twentieth century. Many people failed to see the purpose in using the device for social calls, and most advertisements were directed toward business owners. In Philadelphia, Bell began with only fifteen customers in 1877 and had only 3,300 in 1890. But the practical use of the telephone soon proved it indispensable. By 1917, there were 175,000 Bell Telephone subscribers and 450,000 miles of telephone wire in Philadelphia.

Bell’s patent on his telephone system ended in 1894, and competitors quickly emerged. In 1900, a U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania, Robert H. Foerderer (1860-1903), founded the Keystone Telephone Company, launching a rivalry that spanned nearly fifty years. Keystone never approached Bell in size, but it used this to its advantage in marketing its service to consumers. Keystone operated only seven telephone exchanges at its peak and could assign one number to each exchange. As a result, Keystone telephone numbers were only five digits long, one for the exchange and four for the extension, as opposed to the more common seven digit numbers used by Bell. Print advertisements highlighted this feature, billing Keystone’s as “the fastest telephone in Philadelphia.” Keystone telephones were manufactured with exchange numbers printed on their rotary dials to further facilitate speedy dialing.

Bell and Keystone competed for the market across the Delaware River as well. In 1902, the Eastern Telephone and Telegraph Company completed a cable under the Delaware River connecting its lines to Keystone’s system in Philadelphia. Keystone later bought out Eastern as well as a number of smaller communications companies. The first interstate automatic telephone exchange was introduced in Philadelphia in 1943, but this service was not extended to South Jersey customers. Philadelphians wishing to reach Camden residents from Keystone lines were still instructed to speak to operators at manual exchanges.

The two companies continued to compete fiercely, even building exchanges across the street from one another, until Bell bought Keystone in 1944. Keystone service ended on September 17, 1945. At the time, Philadelphia was the only major American city with two competing telephone service companies. In the Wilmington, Delaware, area, service originally provided by the Atlantic & Delaware Telegraph Company was purchased by Diamond State Telephone Company, a subsidiary of Bell. Bell again effectively created a monopoly on telecommunications in the United States that which remained in place until January 1, 1984, when the Bell System was broken into seven “Baby Bell” companies. Philadelphia customers came under the control of Bell Atlantic, which merged with Connecticut-based GTE Corporation in 2000 to form Verizon Communications.

The Dawn of Wireless Telephony

Philadelphia was home to some of the early milestones of mobile telephony. In 1919, W. W. MacFarlane of Elkins Park, Montgomery County, invented a portable wireless telephone in his home workshop. Weighing twelve pounds and with a range of just one-quarter mile, the device was hardly practical and just barely portable. Nevertheless, MacFarlane’s invention generated interest among hobbyists when he demonstrated it by taking reporters for a ride in his automobile , then calling his wife at home.

MacFarlane envisioned that mobile telephony would soon be in use on railroads. It would be another fifty years, however, before this prediction came true. In January 1969, the first commercial cellular radio system was designed by Bell Systems for Penn Central Railroad’s high-speed Metroliner service between New York City and Washington, D.C. The system was managed by a computerized control center located in Philadelphia’s Thirtieth Street Station .

The first consumer mobile phone did not enter the market until 1983, when Motorola released its DynaTAC , colloquially known as the “brick phone.” As with telephone service in its early days, the mobile phone was initially successful only amongst business owners and professionals, but eventually became almost universal. In 2015, a Pew Research Center survey found that 92 percent of U.S. adults owned a cellular telephone. Philadelphia continued to play an important role in telecommunications in the twenty-first century. Although Bell left the city in 1997, Philadelphia became the home of Comcast , one of the largest providers of telephone landlines. Once a novelty, the telephone became an almost indispensable technology for both business and social communication. The telephone companies that called the region home helped the Philadelphia area become a center for telecommunications businesses and innovation.

Lucy Davis is a research and digital publishing assistant for The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia. (Author information current at time of publishing.)

Copyright 2017, Rutgers University

Alexander Graham Bell

Library of Congress

Alexander Graham Bell was one of several inventors involved in the development of the telephone. Bell was born in Scotland and emigrated to the United States in 1871, where he became a teacher for the deaf. At the same time, he joined the large number of inventors who were searching for a method to transmit multiple simultaneous messages over a single telegraph wire. He instead developed a “harmonic telegraph” that used reeds to transmit musical tones, and a new device for transmitting human voice over wire: the telephone.

Despite lending his name to the telephone company that held a monopoly on American telecommunications for much of the twentieth century, Bell lost interest in the telephone after only a few years. By the early 1880s, he had sold most of his shares in the company and no longer served on its advisory board. He instead turned his attention to refining the phonograph and returned to his true passion of enriching the lives of deaf people. Much of his wealth went to establishing the Volta Laboratory, a facility for studying both sound recording and deafness. It merged with the American Association for the Promotion and Teaching of Speech to the Deaf in 1908 and became the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in 1999.

Keystone Dial

PhonemanDave.net

The Keystone Telephone Company operated just seven exchanges at its peak. Because of this, Keystone’s telephone numbers were only five digits, one for the exchange and four for the extension, in contrast to the standard seven digits used by other companies. Keystone advertised this feature, touting its company as the fastest and printing the exchange names directly on the rotary dial of its phones. Note that Camden numbers had to be connected by speaking to the operator as the exchange was not automated like the Philadelphia exchanges.

Bell and Keystone Exchanges

Bell Telephone and Keystone Telephone competed fiercely and built their exchanges in close proximity to each other—sometimes directly across the street. Bell built its West Philadelphia exchange at 8-12 N. Preston Street around 1900 (left), and three years later Keystone built its own exchange at 9-13 N. Preston Street. The two exchanges were physically connected by a bank of cables that ran under Preston Street. When Bell purchased Keystone in 1944, the company gained ownership of Keystone’s Preston Street exchange. In 2017, both buildings were being used as performing arts spaces. (Photograph by Lucy Davis for The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia )

Elisha Gray

Google Books

Elisha Gray, an electrical engineer from Ohio, filed a caveat for his telephone with the U.S. Patent Office on February 14, 1876, the same day Bell filed his patent. Gray and Bell’s rivalry would spawn a Supreme Court case that ultimately awarded the patent to Bell. Gray later founded the Western Electric Manufacturing Company, which held a monopoly on the telephones Bell Systems leased to its customers.

Thomas A. Watson

On March 10, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell made the first intraoffice phone call to his assistant, Thomas A. Watson, reportedly the words “Mr. Watson, come here! I want to see you!” Watson, shown in this 1902 photograph, later explained that Bell had spilled battery acid while working in his lab and needed assistance in cleaning it.

Prototype Telephone Used at Centennial

The telephone made its public debut at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition. Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated his prototype device, illustrated here, by reciting lines of Hamlet through it to an astonished crowd. Google Books

Wanamaker's "Grand Depot"

Historical Society of Pennsylvania

John Wanamaker was a prominent early adopter of the telephone. Wanamaker had a telephone installed in his “Grand Depot” department store by 1879 and established a telephone ordering system, the first of its kind, as early as 1906.

W.W. MacFarlane of Elkins Park, Montgomery County, demonstrates his portable wireless telephone in this 1920 photograph. MacFarlane demonstrated the device by taking reporters for a ride in his automobile, then calling his wife at home.

Philadelphia's First Transatlantic Telephone Call

Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries

Bell Telephone Company president Josiah H. Penniman (left) and University of Pennsylvania provost Leonard H. Kinnard made the city’s first transatlantic call in January 1927. The call connected Bell’s headquarters at 1835 Arch Street with the British Telephone offices in London. Transatlantic service was inaugurated between New York and London just three weeks earlier.

Related Topics

• Philadelphia and the Nation
• City of Firsts

Time Periods

• Twenty-First Century
• Twentieth Century after 1945
• Twentieth Century to 1945
• Nineteenth Century after 1854
• Center City Philadelphia
• West Philadelphia
• Centennial Exhibition (1876)
• Department Stores
• Radio (Commercial)

Related Reading

Beers, Dorothy Gondos. “The Centennial City 1865-1876.” In Weigley, Russell F., ed. Philadelphia: A 300-Year History . New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1982.

Brooks, John. Telephone: The First Hundred Years . New York: Harper & Row, 1976.

Bruce, Robert V. Bell: Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude . Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990.

Fischer, Claude S. America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940 . Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.

Kyriakodis, Harry. “ Wired City .” Hidden City Philadelphia, January 14, 2013.

Related Collections

• Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers Library of Congress 101 Independence Avenue, Washington, D.C.
• Foederer Family Papers Historical Society of Pennsylvania 1300 Locust Street, Philadelphia.

Related Places

• Bell Telephone Company Building
• Site of Western Union Telegraph Company Building
• Site of Machinery Hall (Centennial Grounds)
• Wanamakers (now Macy's)
• Wyoming Central Office of Bell Telephone
• Site of Keystone Telephone Headquarters (Welcome Park)
• Vincentown-Tabernacle Telephone Company and Museum

Backgrounders

Connecting Headlines with History

• NJ's Bell labs says it can shrink those wireless phone antennas (WHYY, March 2, 2011)
• 'Icing' your phone could save a life (WHYY, January 13, 2014)
• Is your phone giving you the flu? (WHYY, January 16, 2014)
• In Philly, 'bat phone' helps unemployed connect with understaffed office (WHYY, April 20, 2017)
• Wired City (Hidden City Philadelphia)
• Alexander Graham Bell's Large Box Telephone (Smithsonian Institute)
• Alexander Graham Bell Experimental Telephone (Smithsonian Institute)
• Wyoming Central Office of Bell Telephone Nomination (pdf, National Register of Historic Place)
• Telephone & Light Patent Drawings (National Archive)
• A North Philly Building's Direct Connection to the Past (Hidden City Philadelphia)
• Dial Up for the Latest Election News (Hidden City Philadelphia)
• The Invention of the Telephone Primary Source Set (Digital Public Library of America)

Connecting the Past with the Present, Building Community, Creating a Legacy

English Compositions

Short Essay on Telephone [100, 200, 400 Words] With PDF

The telephone is one of the most important gadgets for our modern-day lives. In this lesson today, you will learn how to write short essays on Telephones. So, let’s get started. 

Short Essay on Telephone in 100 Words

The telephone was one of the most important gadgets in our daily life even a decade ago. It is the most essential device to maintain communication between two corners of the world. Around 150 years ago, in 1876, Scottish engineer – scientist Alexander Graham Bell invented the Telephone. With this invention, the contemporary communication industry saw a revolutionary transformation.

Though telecommunication used to be pretty much complicated and costly back then. But with modern scientific advancement Telephones reached almost every urban household of India by the beginning of the 21st century. With more technological advancement telephones became wireless and modernized. Then gradually mobile phones came into the picture by the middle of the first decade of this century and replaced traditional landline telephones. 

Short Essay on Telephone in 200 Words

Even around two decades ago, people could hardly imagine their life without traditional telephones. The telephone was the primary mean of our modern communication. Before the invention of the Telephone, we used to write letters and send telegrams to communicate with our friends and relatives. But the telephone brought the entire world closer to us, making our closed people’s voices audible. The person who made this magic possible is Sir Alexander Graham Bell. The invention of the Telephone paved the way for a revolution in communication. 

With time and scientific advancements, Telephones became much modernised. At the very beginning, it was very difficult to establish telecommunication networks. So making calls was not so easy either. Moreover, the size and design of those first-generation telephones were also less practical. But with the beginning of the 20th century, everything around the Telecommunication industry started changing. By the second half of the century, telephones started using wireless communication network systems. With more scientific advancement in the telecommunication industry, mobile phones came into the picture. 

Telephones have enormous contributions to our lives. Making communication easier this gadget contributes to various industries and creates millions of job opportunities. So, in this modern era without telephones, our life will be nothing but deep into utter darkness. 

Short Essay on Telephone in 400 Words

The word telephone is derived from two different Greek words. One is ‘Tele’ that means far and the next one is ‘phone’ which refers to sound/voice. From the late 19th century the race had begun to make the first machine that could transmit human voice from one place to another. By the mid-1800s’ an Italian inventor named  Antonio Mauci became nearly successful in making such a machine.

He named it a ‘Sound Telegraph’. But in 1876, Scottish engineer Alexander Graham Bell invented the first Tele-talking machine called Telephone. He made the first call in history from one floor to another and talked to his friend. 

Though the first telephone was nothing sort of as we see it today. It was comparatively large in size and there were many kinds of difficulties to be resolved in it. But with time and modern scientific advancement traditional, basic telephones were modernised. From the mid 20th century, engineers started trying to use more advanced technologies to make telephones multi-functional. Gradually the design of telephones became practical and a few additional gadgets were also invented to make telephones a bit smarter.

Compared to the time, no matter how smart the telephone actually became, it still had one basic problem. A person still couldn’t carry a telephone along with him. After long research, engineers of Motorola first created a portable phone in 1973. They named it a Mobile Telephone. This is how the journey of the modern telephone started.

The invention of the mobile telephone revolutionized the telecommunication industry. Gradually with technological advancement and increasing affordability, mobile phones have now completely replaced the traditional telephone. 

India got its first telephone during the ‘British Raj’ on 28th January 1882. The first ‘telephone exchange’ was established in contemporary Calcutta. Three telephone exchange offices were established later in the three main cities of British India. But telephone service was limited to military usage and highly rich people till even the early post-independence period. Only from the last quarter of the 20th-century, the telephone service started being available for common Indian people. Landline telephone reached many urban households till the end of the century. 

The telephone has affected human civilization extensively till after its invention. The world saw extensive usage of telephones for military purposes in two consequent world wars. It helped people to bring the long-distance closer and eliminated the time gap from between. Nowadays, the modern mobile telephone has reached such a stage where it’s being used for almost all purposes. 

So, that was all to write in an essay about Telephones. Hopefully, after going through this lesson, you have understood everything about writing short essays on Telephones and will be able to write such essays yourself.

I have presented the entire context in a very simple language exclusively for your easy understanding. If you still have doubts regarding this session, kindly let me know through the comment section below. To read more such essays on various important topics, keep browsing our website. 

Please join us on Telegram to get the latest updates on our upcoming sessions. Thank you.

History of Telephone Technology

The remarkable narrative of telephone technology has changed communication worldwide and spans more than a century. The development of this technology has impacted how we connect and communicate with one another, starting with Alexander Graham Bell’s creation of the telephone in 1876 and continuing through the development of automatic exchanges, the growth of telephone networks, the introduction of mobile telephony, and the advent of digital communication. As cell phones and internet telephony grow in popularity, we are seeing new developments expanding the realms of communication. Join us for a quick tour of telephone technology’s fascinating past and revolutionary effects.

Alexander Graham Bell’s Bell’s revolutionary invention allowed for the first successful long-distance transmission of intelligible speech. Bell’s famous words, “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see You,” during his groundbreaking experiment symbolize the beginning of modern telecommunications (Bellis, 2021, pg 45). The invention of the telephone, however, was not a singular event; instead, it resulted from years of actual labour and inspiration from the creations of previous inventors. The groundwork had been set by individuals like Elisha Gray and Antonio Mecca through their contributions and developments in telecommunications technology.

Early telephone networks began to appear, first concentrating on urban areas where there was a significant need for communication. The manual switchboards used in these early telephone networks required operators to connect calls manually. An operator who worked at the switchboard would take calls from anybody who wanted to make them. The caller’s line would then be physically connected to the recipient’s line by the operator, allowing for the discussion to begin (Burke, 2022).

Companies like Bell Telephone Company revolutionized the establishment and extension of telephone networks. Early telephone systems were manual, but this had drawbacks. The switchboards needed a large staff to run them, which increased the chance of mistakes and delays while connecting calls.

With the advent of automatic exchanges in the early 20th century, critical technological advances transformed telephone exchanges. This cutting-edge technology improved efficiency and streamlined the procedure by eliminating the need for manual operators to connect calls. The Strowger switch was a significant invention that helped automate telephone exchanges—the Strowger switch, a groundbreaking electromechanical invention by Almon Strowger in 1891, automated connecting telephone calls. The Strowger switch employed several electromechanical parts to link various telephone lines, including relays. The switch functioned based on the caller’s dialled digits rather than on human operators, enabling autonomous call routing and connecting (Lax, 2009).

Automatic exchanges were widely used, which led to a rapid expansion of telephone networks that connected more people and businesses in more places. The automation of exchanges opened the door for new functions and features like direct dialling and call routing, which improved the usability and functionality of telecommunications systems even more.

The reach of telephone networks considerably increased as telephone technology developed, linking towns, regions, and entire nations. Various technology innovations and infrastructure improvements allowed for this expansion. Installing undersea cables was a significant breakthrough in expanding telephone networks’ range (Burke, 2022, pg. 30). These cables were built across seas to provide international telephone service and improve communication between various nations. The first underwater cable, set up between England and France in 1850, made possible future transoceanic communication.

Satellite communications and undersea cables further increased the worldwide reach of telephone technology. Satellites enabled connections in remote locations and facilitated international communication networks by permitting long-distance communication without physical cables. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) was founded in 1865 to guarantee effective communication and cooperation on a worldwide scale. The ITU was essential in defining international rules, standardizing telecommunications networks, and encouraging cooperation between various nations and telecommunications groups (MATHER, 1916).

Thanks to the development of telephone networks and global communication infrastructure , people, organizations, and governments may now communicate across borders and continents. 1980s, mobile telephony was introduced, marking a crucial turning point in developing telephone technology and altering how people interact. People could now make calls wirelessly on mobile phones, which eliminated the need for actual landlines and increased mobility and convenience. Communication improved with the spread of mobile telephones and became more widely available. People could now communicate with each other no matter where they were, increasing communication and promoting a sense of oneness worldwide. Mobile phones quickly evolved into crucial tools for interpersonal and business communication. As digital networks replaced analogue systems, telephone technology underwent an additional transformation. More precise speech communication, better audio quality, and increased call dependability were all made possible by digital Technology (Raum, 2020).

The telephone industry changed with Internet telephony, often called Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). As the internet expanded, applications like Skype and WhatsApp appeared, allowing people to make voice and video chats online. This invention made it simple and affordable for people to converse internationally instead of using regular phone calls. Smartphones merged voice calling with various features and functions, such as messaging, internet surfing, mobile apps, and multimedia consumption.

The telephone industry is primed for innovative developments and seismic shifts soon. One of the major trends will be the overall development of 5G connections. Technologies such as augmented reality and the Internet of Things (IoT) will help provide fast speeds and reduce latency. Another area that will transform Technology is Artificial intelligence (AI), which has led to the development of Voice assistants with the help of AI-powered technologies like voice recognition and natural language processing, improving human interactions (Bellis, 2021).

In conclusion, the development of telephone technology illustrates the constant search for innovation and the need for personal connection. It has changed communication, removing barriers and significantly improving our lives. Telephone technology’s capability will rapidly increase as humans strive to create a networked world.

Farley, T. (2005). Mobile telephone history.  Privately. Com, http://www. Private line. com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/TelenorPage_022-034. Pdf .

Lacohée, H., Wakeford, N., & Pearson, I. (2003). A social history of the mobile telephone with a view of its future.  BT Technology Journal ,  21 (3), 203–211.

Janevski, T. (2009, January). 5G mobile phone concept. In  2009 6th IEEE consumer communications and networking conference  (pp. 1–2). IEEE.

A&E Television Networks. (n.d.).  Alexander Graham Bell: Telephone & Inventions – History . History.com. https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/alexander-graham-bell

Bellis, M. (2021, May 22).  The history of the telephone . ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-the-telephone-alexander-graham-bell-1991380

Burke, M. (2022, December 26).  The evolution of Telephone Technology: A brief history . LinkedPhone. https://linkedphone.com/blog/evolution-of-telephone-technology-brief-history/

Lax, S. (2009). The early history of technology and communications: The Telegraph and the telephone.  Media and Communications Technologies , pp. 9–29. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-07644-1_2

MATHER, T. (1916). The telephone and the telephone exchanges: Their invention and development.  Nature ,  98 (2454), 188–188. https://doi.org/10.1038/098188a0

Raum, E. (2020).  The history of the telephone . Heinemann Library.

Early telephone. (2003).  Bandwagon Effects in High Technology Industries . https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/1509.003.0012

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Essay on Telephone: Introduction, History and Components

After reading this essay you will learn about:- 1. Introduction to Telephone 2. History of the Telephone 3. Components 4. Advances in Telephone Technology 5. Making a Telephone Call 6. Equipment of Telephone Switching 7. Transmission System 8. Services 9. Evolution of the Telephone Industry 10. Telephone Industry Today 11. Recent Developments.

• Essay on the Recent Developments in Telephone Technology

Essay # 1. Introduction to Telephone:

The telephone is an instrument that is designed for the simultaneous transmission and reception of the human voice. This function has been extended in recent years and now the telephone sends and receives both voice messages and data.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

Telephones convert speech and data to electrical symbols, which can then be sent over great distances. All telephones are linked by complex switching systems called central offices or exchanges, which establish the pathway for information to travel.

Telephones are used for casual conversations, to conduct business, and to summon help in an emergency. The telephone has other uses that do not involve one person talking to another, including paying bills (the caller uses the telephone to communicate with a bank’s distant computer) and retrieving messages from an answering machine.

In 2000, there were 700 main telephone lines per 1,000 people in the United States and 677 main telephone lines per 1,000 people in Canada, while in India, according to the latest-published data available, there were only 7 per 1,000 people in 1994 and will probably be under 100 in AD 2000.

A large portion of the information passing through telephone lines occurs entirely between special- purpose telephones, such as computers with modems.

A modem converts the digital bits of a computer’s output to an audio tone, which is then converted to an electrical signal and passed over telephone lines to be decoded by a modem attached to a computer at the receiving end—thus the name ‘modem’ or modulator/demodulator.

Another special-purpose telephone is a facsimile machine, or fax machine, which produces a facsimile of a document sent through the transmitter to the receiver.

Essay # 2. History of the Telephone :

The history of the invention of the telephone is a stormy one. A number of inventors believed voice signals might be carried over wires, and all worked toward this end. The first to achieve success was a Scottish-born American inventor, Alexander Graham Bell, a speech teacher in Boston, Massachusetts.

Bell had built an experimental telegraph, which began to function strangely one day because a part had come loose. The accident gave Bell insight into how voices could be reproduced at a distance, and he constructed a transmitter and a receiver, for which he received a patent on March 7, 1876.

On March 10, 1876, as he and his assistant, Thomas A. Watson, were preparing to test the mechanism. Bell spilled some acid on himself. In another room, Watson, next to the receiver, heard clearly the first telephone message: “Mr. Watson, come here; I want you.”

A few hours after Bell had patented his invention, another American inventor, Elisha Gray, filed a document called a caveat with the US Patent Office, announcing that he was well on his way to inventing a telephone.

Other inventors, such as Amos E. Dolbear, also made claim to having invented the telephone at the same time. Lawsuits were filed by various individuals, and Bell’s claim to being the inventor of the first telephone had to be defended in court 600 times before the Supreme Court of the United States decided in his favour.

ADVERTISEMENTS: (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Essay # 3. Components of a Telephone :

A basic telephone set contains a transmitter that sends the caller’s voice to the receiver; a receiver that amplifies sound from an incoming call; a rotary or push-button dial; a ringer or alerter; and a small assembly of electrical parts, called the anti-side-tone network, that keeps the caller’s voice from sounding too loud through the receiver.

If it is a two-piece telephone set, the transmitter and receiver are mounted in the handset, the ringer is typically in the base, and the dial may be in either the base or handset. The handset cord connects the base to the handset, and the line cord connects the telephone to the telephone line.

More sophisticated telephones may vary from this pattern. A speakerphone has a microphone and speaker in the base in addition to the transmitter and receiver in the handset. Speakerphones allow callers’ hands to be free, and allow more than two people to listen and speak during a call. In a cordless phone, the handset cord is replaced by a radio link between the handset and base, but a line cord is still used.

This allows a caller to move about in a limited area while on the telephone. A cellular phone has extremely miniaturized components that make it possible to combine the base and handset into one handheld unit. No line or handset cords are needed with a cellular phone. A cellular phone permits more mobility than a cordless phone.

i. Transmitter:

There are two common kinds of telephone Alerter transmitters:

The carbon transmit­ter and the electret transmitter. The carbon transmitter is constructed by placing carbon granules be­tween metal plates called electrodes. One of the metal plates is a thin diaphragm that takes variations in pressure caused by sound waves and transmits these variations to the carbon granules.

The electrodes conduct electricity that flows through the carbon. Variations in pressure caused by sound waves hitting the diaphragm cause the electrical resistance of the carbon to vary—when the grains are squeezed to­gether, they conduct electricity more easily; and when they are far apart, they conduct electricity less efficiently.

The current flowing through this section then varies with the sound-wave pressure applied to the transmitter.

The electret transmitter is composed of a thin disk of metal-coated plastic and a thicker, hollow metal disk. In the handset, the plastic disk is held slightly above most of the metal disk. The plastic disk is electrically charged, and an electric field is created in the space between the disks do not touch.

Sound waves from the caller’s voice cause the plastic disk to vibrate, which changes the distance between the disks, and so changes the intensity of the electric field between them. The variations in the electric field are translated into variations of electric current, which travels across telephone lines. An amplifier is needed with an electret transmitter to obtain sufficiently strong signals.

ii. Receiver:

The receiver of a telephone set is made from a flat ring of magnetic material with a short cuff of the same material attached to the ring’s outer rim. Underneath the magnetic ring and inside the magnetic cuff is a coil of wire through which electric current, representing the sounds from the distant telephone, flows.

A thin diaphragm of magnetic material is suspended from the inside edges of the mag­netic ring so that it is positioned between the magnet and the coil. The magnetic field created by the magnet changes with the current in the coil and makes the diaphragm vibrate. The vibrating diaphragm creates sound waves that replicate the sounds that were transformed into electricity by the other person’s transmitter.

iii. Alerter or Ringer:

The alerter in a telephone is usually called the ringer, because for most of the telephone’s history, a bell was used to indicate a call.

The alerter responds only to a special frequency of electricity that is sent by the exchange in response to the request for that telephone number. Creating an electronic replacement for the bell that can provide a pleasing yet attention-getting sound at a reasonable cost was a surprisingly difficult task.

For many people, the sound of a bell is still preferable to the sound of an electronic alerter. However, since a mechanical bell requires a certain amount of space in the telephone to be effective, smaller telephones necessitate the use of electronic alerters.

The telephone dial has undergone major changes in its history.

Two forms of dialing still exist within the telephone system:

Dial pulse from a rotary dial, and multi-frequency tone, which is commonly called by its original trade name of Touch-Tone, from a push-button dial.

In a rotary dial, the numerals one to nine, followed by zero, are placed in a circle behind round holes in a movable plate. The user places a finger in the hole corresponding to the desired digit and rotates the movable plate clockwise until the user’s finger hits the finger stop; then the user removes the finger.

A spring mechanism causes the plate to return to its starting position, and, while the plate is turning, the mechanism opens an electrical switch the number of times equal to the dial digit.

Zero receives ten switch openings since it is the last digit on the dial. The result is a number of “dial pulses” in the electrical current flowing between the telephone set and the exchange. Equipment at the exchange counts these pulses to determine the number being called.

The rotary dial has been used since the 1920s. But mechanical dials are expensive to repair and the rotary-dialing process itself is slow, especially if a long string of digits is dialed.

The development of inexpensive and reliable amplification provided by the introduction of the transistor in the 1960s made practical the design of a dialing system based on the transmission of relatively low power tones instead of the higher-power pulses.

Today, most telephones have push-buttons instead of a rotary dial. Touch-Tone is an optional service, and telephone companies still maintain the ability to receive pulse dialing. Push-button telephones usually have a switch on the base that the customer can set to determine whether the telephone will send pulses or tones.

Essay # 4. Advances in Telephone Technology :

After the invention of the telephone instrument itself, the second greatest technological advance in the industry may have been the invention of automatic switching.

There is an interesting story concerning the first automatic exchange. Before automatic exchanges were invented, switching was done manually. In these manual exchanges, the connection was made between two parties by having the operator plug a jumper cable into the input and output sockets.

There is an interesting story associated with the development of automatic switching. Originally, when telephones were invented, they formed a connection only between two locations, so that if A wanted to talk to B, they could do so provided a telephone line was installed between them and they each had a telephone instrument.

Later on, when A wanted to talk to C, similar arrangements had to be made between A and C—that is, a fresh telephone line had to be established between A and C and they both had to be given a fresh telephone instrument.

Later on, if B wanted to talk to C the same arrangement had to be made. When the requirements of the telephone started growing, the entire town started to be crisscrossed with telephone cables until someone got the idea of having a central exchange to which all telephones were connected.

Whenever anyone wanted to talk to any other telephone holder, he would contact the exchange and in the manual exchange, and the operator in the exchange would then connect the caller to the called party.

For this, each telephone number had a slot in the exchange and the connection could be done manually through a lead cable. In Kansas city, there was an undertaker named Almon Brown Strowger and he suddenly found that his business was going down. He decided to investigate the reason for this. He found that there was another undertaker whose wife was the town telephone operator.

When Mr. Strowger found that his business was declining and upon further investigation found that all the business was being directed away from him and towards his competitor, he decided to make an automatic exchange. The first automatic exchanges were called Strowger switches, after Almon Brown Strowger. He received a patent for the switches in 1891.

Long-distance telephony was established in small steps. The first step was the introduction of the long-distance telephone, originally a special highly efficient instrument permanently installed in a tele­phone company building and used for calling between cities.

The invention at the end of the 19th century of the loading coil (a coil of copper wire wound on an iron core and connected to the cable every mile or so) increased the speaking range to approximately 1,000 miles.

Until the 1910s the long-distance service used repeaters, electromechanical devices spaced along the route of the call which amplified and repeated conversations into another long distance instrument.

The obvious shortcomings of this arrangement were overcome with the invention of the triode vacuum tube, which amplified electrical signals. In 1915, vacuum-tube repeaters were used to initiate service from New York City to San Fran­cisco, California.

The vacuum tube also made possible the development of long-wave radio circuits that could span oceans. Sound quality on early radio circuits was poor, and transmissions subject to unpredictable in­terruption. In the 1950s, the technology of the coaxial-cable system was combined with high-reliability vacuum-tube circuits in an undersea cable linking North America and Europe, greatly improving trans­mission quality.

Unlike the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable placed in service in 1857, which failed after two months, the first telephone cable (laid in 1956) served many years before becoming obso­lete.

The application of digital techniques to transmission, along with undersea cable and satellites, finally made it possible to link points halfway around the earth with a circuit that had speech quality almost as good as that between next-door neighbours.

Improved automatic-switching systems followed the gradual improvement in transmission technology. Until Direct Distance Dialing became available, all long-distance calls still required the assistance of an operator to complete.

By adding a three-digit area code in front of the subscriber’s old number and developing more sophisticated common-control- switching machines, it became possible for subscribers to complete their own long-distance calls. Today, customer-controlled international dialing is available between many countries.

Business Telephones :

A large business will usually have its own switching machine called a Private Branch Exchange (PBX), with hundreds or possibly thousands of lines, all of which can be reached by dialing one number. The extension telephones connected to the large business’s PBX are often identical to the simple single-line instruments used in residences.

The telephones used by small businesses, which do not have their own PBX, must incorporate the capability of accessing several telephone lines and are called multiline sets. The small-business environment usually requires the capability of transferring calls from one set to another as well as intercom calls, which allow one employee to call another without having to go through an external telephone exchange.

Cellular Telephones:

A cellular telephone is designed to give the user maximum freedom of movement while using a tele­phone. A cellular telephone uses radio signals to communicate between the set and an antenna. The served area is divided into cells something like a honeycomb and an antenna is placed within each cell and connected by telephone lines to one exchange devoted to cellular-telephone calls.

This exchange connects cellular telephones to one another or transfers the call to a regular exchange if the call is be­tween a cellular telephone and a non-cellular telephone.

The special cellular exchange, through computer control, selects the antenna closest to the telephone when service is requested. As the telephone roams, the exchange automatically determines when to change the serving cell based on the power of the radio signal received simultaneously at adjacent sites.

This change occurs without interrupting conversation.

Practical power considerations limit the distance between the telephone and the nearest cellular antenna, and since cellular phones use radio signals, it is very easy for unauthorized people to access commu­nications carried out over cellular phones. Currently, digital cellular phones are gaining in popularity because the radio signals used are more difficult to intercept and decode.

Essay # 5. Making a Telephone Call :

A telephone call starts when the caller lifts a handset off the base. This closes an electrical switch that initiates the flow of a steady electric current over the line between the user’s location and the exchange. The exchange detects the current and returns a dial tone, a precise combination of two notes that lets a caller know that the line is ready.

Once the dial tone is heard, the caller uses a rotary or push-button dial mounted either on the handset or base to enter a sequence of digits, the telephone number of the called party. The switching equipment in the exchange removes the dial tone from the line after the first digit is received and, after receiving the last digit, determines whether the called party is in the same exchange or a different exchange.

If the called party is in the same exchange, bursts of ringing current are applied to the called party’s line. Each telephone contains a ringer that responds to a specific electric frequency. When the called party answers the telephone by picking up the handset, steady current starts to flow in the called party’s line and is detected by the exchange.

The exchange then stops applying ringing tones and sets up a connection between the caller and the called party. If the called party is in a different exchange from the caller, the caller’s exchange sets up a connection over the telephone network to the called party’s exchange.

The called exchange then handles the process of ringing, detecting an answer, and notifying the calling exchange and billing machinery when the call is completed (in telephone terminology, a call is completed when the called party answers, not when the conversation is over).

When the conversation is over, one or both parties hang up by replacing their handset on the base, stopping the flow of current. The exchange then initiates the process of breaking the connection, includ­ing notifying billing equipment of the duration of the call if appropriate.

Billing equipment may or may not be involved because calls within the local calling area, which includes several nearby exchanges, may be either flat rate or message rate. In flat-rate service, the subscriber is allowed an unlimited number of calls for a fixed fee each month.

For message-rate subscribers, each call involves a charge that de­pends on the distance between the calling and called parties and the duration of the call. A long-distance call is a call out of the local calling area and is always billed as a message-rate call.

Essay # 6. Equipment of Telephone Switching:

Telephone switching equipment interprets the number dialed and then completes a path through the network to the called subscriber. For long-distance calls with complicated paths through the network, several levels of switching equipment may be needed.

The automatic exchange to which the subscriber’s telephone is connected is the lowest level of switching equipment and is called by various names, in­cluding local exchange, local office, central-office switch, or, simply, switch. Higher levels of switching equipment include tandem and toll switches, and are not needed when both caller and called subscribers are within the same local exchange.

Before automatic exchanges were invented, all calls were placed through manual exchanges in which a small light on a switchboard alerted an operator that a subscriber wanted service. The operator inserted an insulated electrical cable into a jack corresponding to the subscriber requesting service.

This allowed the operator and the subscriber to converse. The caller told the operator the called party’s name, and the operator used another cord adjacent to the first to plug into the called party’s jack and then operated a key (another type of electrical switch) that connected ringing current to the called party’s telephone.

The operator listened for the called party to answer, and then disconnected to ensure the privacy of the call.

Today there are no telephones served by manual exchanges in the United States. All telephone subscribers are served by automatic exchanges, which perform the functions of the human operator. The number being dialed is stored and then passed to the exchange’s central computer, which in turn operates the switch to complete the call or routes it to a higher-level switch for further processing.

Today’s automatic exchanges use a pair of computers, one running the program that provides service, and the second monitoring the operation of the first, ready to take over in a few seconds in the event of an equipment failure.

Early telephone exchanges, a grouping of 10,000 individual subscriber numbers, were originally given names corresponding to their town or location within a city, such as Murray Hill or Market. When the dialing area grew to cover more than one exchange, there was a need for the dial to transmit letters as well as numbers.

This problem was solved by equating three letters to each digit on the dial except for the one and the zero. Each number from two to nine represented three letters, so there was room for only 24 letters. Q and Z were left off the dial because these letters rarely appear in place-names.

In dialing, the first two letters of each exchange name were used ahead of the rest of the subscriber’s number, and all exchange names were standardized as two letters and a digit. Eventually, the place- names were replaced with their equivalent digits, giving us our current US and Canadian seven-digit telephone numbers. In other parts of the world, a number may consist of more or less than seven digits.

The greatly expanded information-processing capability of modern computers permits Direct Dis­tance Dialing, with which a subscriber can automatically place a call to a distant city without needing the services of a human operator to determine the appropriate routing path through the network.

Com­puters in the switching machines used for long-distance calls store the routing information in then- electronic memory. A toll-switching machine may store several different possible routes for a call. As telephone traffic becomes heavier during the day, some routes may become unavailable. The toll switch will then select a less direct alternate route to permit the completion of the call.

Essay # 7. Transmission System of Telephone :

Calling from New Delhi to Vancouver involves using a path that transmits electrical energy almost halfway around the world. During the conversation, it is the task of the transmission system to deliver the required energy for the speech or data to be transmitted clearly and free from noise.

Since the telephone in New Delhi does not know whether it is connected to a telephone next door or to one in Vancouver, the amount of energy put on the line is not different in either case. However, it requires much more energy to converse with Vancouver than with next door because energy is lost in the transmission. The transmission path must provide amplification of the signal as well as transport.

Analog transmission, in which speech or data is converted directly into a varying electrical current, is suitable for local calls. But once the call involves any significant distance, the necessary amplification of the analog signal can add so much noise that the received signal becomes unintelligible. For long­-distance calls, the signal is digitized, or converted to a series of pulses that encodes the information.

When an analog electrical signal is digitized, samples of the signal’s strength are taken at regular intervals, usually about 8,000 samples per second. Each sample is converted into a binary form, a number made up of a series of I s and 0s. This number is easily and swiftly passed through the switching system.

Digital transmission systems are much less subject to interfering noise than are analog systems. The digitized signal can then be passed through a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) at a point close to the receiving party, and converted to a form that the ear cannot distinguish from the original signal.

There are several ways a digital or analog signal may be transmitted, including coaxial and fibre- optic cables and microwave and long-wave radio signals sent along the ground or bounced off satellites in orbit around the earth. A coaxial wire, like the wire between a videocassette recorder, or VCR (see Video Recording), and a television set, is an efficient transmission system.

A coaxial wire has a conduct­ing tube surrounding another conductor. A coaxial cable contains several coaxial wires in a common outer covering. The important benefit of a coaxial cable over a cable composed of simple wires is that the coaxial cable is more efficient at carrying very high frequency currents. A variable current loses energy due to radiation. This loss becomes excessive at high frequencies.

In a coaxial cable, the electric and magnetic fields remain confined between the inner and outer conductors, and hence there is no loss of energy. This is important because in providing transmission over long distances, many telephone conversations are combined using frequency-modulation (FM) techniques similar to the combining of many channels in the television system.

The combined signal containing hundreds of individual tele­phone conversations is sent over one pair of wires in a coaxial cable, so the signal has to be very clear.

Coaxial cable is expensive to install and maintain, especially when it is lying on the ocean floor. Two methods exist for controlling this expense. The first consists of increasing the capacity of the cable and so spreading the expense over more users.

The installation of the first trans-Atlantic submarine coaxial telephone cable in 1956 provided only about 30 channels, but the number of submarine cable channels across the ocean has grown to thousands with the addition of only a few more cables because of the greatly expanded capacity of each new coaxial cable.

Another telephone-transmission method uses fibre-optic cable, which is made of bundles of optical fibres , long strands of especially made glass encased in a protective coating. Optical fibres transmit energy in the form of light pulses. The technology is similar to that of the coaxial cable, except that the optical fibres can handle tens of thousands of conversations simultaneously.

Another approach to long-distance transmission is the use of radio. Before coaxial cables were in­vented, very powerful long-wave (low-frequency) radio stations were used for intercontinental calls. Only a few calls could be in progress at one time, however, and such calls were very expensive.

Mi­crowave radio uses very high frequency radio waves and has the ability to handle a large number of simultaneous conversations over the same microwave link. Because cable does not have to be installed between microwave towers, this system is usually cheaper than coaxial cable. On land, the coaxial-cable systems are often supplemented with microwave-radio systems.

The technology of microwave radio is carried one step further by the use of communications satel­lites.

Most communications satellites are in geosynchronous orbit—that is, they orbit the earth once a day over the equator, so the satellite is always above the same place on the earth’s surface. That way, only a single satellite is then needed for continuous service between two points on the surface, provided both points can be seen from the satellite.

Even considering the expense of a satellite, this method is cheaper to install and maintain per channel than using coaxial cables on the ocean floor. Consequently, satellite links are used regularly in long-distance calling. Since radio waves, while very fast, take time to travel from one point to another, satellite communication does have one serious shortcoming.

Be­cause of the satellite’s distance from the earth, there is a noticeable lag in conversational responses. As a result, many calls use a satellite for only one direction of transmission, such as from the caller to the receiver, and use a ground microwave or coaxial link for receiver-to-caller transmission.

A combination of microwave, coaxial-cable, optical-fibre, and satellite paths now link the major cities of the world.

The capacity of each type of system depends on its age and the territory covered, but capacities generally fall into the following ranges:

Frequency modulation over a simple pair of wires like the earliest telephone lines yields tens of circuits (a circuit can transmit one telephone conversation) per pair; coaxial cable yields hundreds of circuits per pair of conductors, and thousands per cable; microwave and satellite transmissions yield thousands of circuits per link; and optical fibre has the potential for tens of thousands of circuits per fibre.

Essay # 8. Services Provided by Telephone:

In the United States and Canada, universal service was a stated goal of the telephone industry during the first half of the 20th century—every household was to have its own telephone. This goal has now been essentially reached, but before it became a reality, the only access many people had to the telephone was through pay (or public) telephones, usually placed in a neighbourhood store.

A pay telephone is a telephone that may have special hardware to count and safeguard coins or, more recently, to read the information off credit cards or calling cards. Additional equipment at the exchange responds to signals from the pay phone to indicate to the operator or automatic exchange how much money has been deposited or to which account the call will be charged.

Today, the pay phone still exists, but it usually serves as a convenience rather than as primary access to the telephone network.

Computer-controlled exchange switches make it possible to offer a variety of extra services to both the residential and the business customer.

Some services to which users may subscribe at extra cost are call waiting, in which a second incoming call, instead of receiving a busy signal, hears normal ringing while the subscriber hears a beep superimposed on the conversation in progress; and three-way calling, in which a second outgoing call may be placed while one is already in progress so that three subscribers can then talk to each other.

Some services available to users within exchanges with the most-modern transmission systems are: caller ID, in which the calling party’s number is displayed to the receiver (with the calling party’s permission—subscribers can elect to make their telephone number hidden from caller-ID services) on special equipment before the call is answered; and repeat dialing, in which a called number, if busy, will be automatically redialed for a certain amount of time.

For residential service, voice mail can either be purchased from the telephone company or can be obtained by purchasing an answering machine.

An answering machine usually contains a regular telephone set along with the ability to detect incoming calls and to record and play back messages, with either an audiotape or a digital system. After a pre-set number of rings, the answering machine plays a pre-recorded message inviting the caller to leave a message to be recorded.

Toll-free 800 (in the US) and 600 (in India) numbers are a very popular service. Calls made to a telephone number that has an 800-area code in the US or 600-STD code in India are billed to the called party rather than to the caller.

This is very useful to any business that uses mail-order sales, because it encourages potential customers to call to place orders. A less expensive form of 800-number service is now available for residential subscribers.

In calling telephone numbers with area codes of 900(in the US), the caller is billed an extra charge, often on a per-minute basis. The use of these numbers has ranged from collecting contributions for charitable organizations, to businesses that provide information for which the caller must pay.

While the United States and Canada are the most advanced countries in the world in telephone- service technologies, most other industrialized nations are not far behind. An organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, called the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), works to standardize telephone service throughout the world.

Without its coordinating activities, International Direct Dis­tance Dialing (a service that provides the ability to place international calls without the assistance of an operator) would have been extremely difficult to implement. Among its other services, the ITU cre­ates an environment in which a special service introduced in one country can be quickly duplicated elsewhere.

Essay # 9. Evolution of the Telephone Industry :

In the late 1800s, the Bell Telephone Company (established in 1877 by Alexander Graham Bell and financial backers Gardiner Greene Hubbard, a lawyer, and Thomas Sanders, a leather merchant) strongly defended its patents in order to exclude others from the telephone business. After these patents expired in 1893 and 1894, independent telephone companies were started in many cities and most small towns.

A period of consolidation followed in the early 1900s, and eventually about 80 percent of the customers in the United States and many of those in Canada were served by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), which had bought the Bell Telephone Company in 1900. AT&T sold off its Canadian interests in 1908.

From 1885 to 1887 and from 1907 to 1919, AT&T was headed by Theodore Vail, whose vision shaped the industry for most of the 20th century. At that time, AT&T included 22 regional operating companies, each providing telephone service to an area comprising a large city, state, or group of states.

In addition to owning virtually all of the long-distance circuits in use in the United States, AT&T owned the Western Electric Company, which manufactured most of the equipment. Such a corporate combina­tion is called a vertically integrated monopoly because it dominates all facets of a business.

Both the long-distance part of AT&T and the operating companies were considered to be “natural monopolies,” and by law were decreed to be the sole provider of telephone service within a designated area. More than 5,000 independent companies remained, but each independent was also a monopoly with an exclusive service region.

This arrangement reduced the costs associated with more than one company stringing wires in an area, and eliminated the early problems that had arisen when customers of one company serving a region wished to call customers of another company serving the same area.

In exchange for the absence of competition, the companies were regulated by various levels of government, which told them what services they must provide and what prices they could charge.

During this time, telephone sets were never sold to the customer—they were leased as part of an overall service package that included the telephone, the connecting lines to the exchange, and the capa­bility of calling other customers.

In this way, the telephone company was responsible for any problems, whether they arose from equipment failures, damage to exposed wires, or even the conduct of operators on their job. If a telephone set broke, it was fixed or replaced at no charge.

Since stringing wires between exchanges and users was a major part of the cost of providing tele­phone service, especially in rural environments, early residential subscribers often shared the same line. These were called party lines—as opposed to private, or single-party, lines. When one subscriber on a party line was making a telephone call, the other parties on the line could not use the line.

Unfortunately, they could listen to the conversation, thereby compromising its privacy. Such arrangements also meant that, unless special equipment was used, all the telephones on the line would ring whenever there was a call for any of the parties. Each party had a distinct combination of short and long rings to indicate whether the call was for that house or another party.

Business telephones were usually private lines. A business could not afford to have its service blocked by another user. This meant that business service was more expensive than residential service. Businesses continued to be charged more for their private lines than were subscribers with private lines in homes.

This subsidization of telephones in homes permeated the government-regulated rate structure of the telephone industry until about 1980. Long-distance service was priced artificially high, and the consequent extra revenues to the telephone company were used to keep the price of residential service artificially low.

While most consumers were happy with the control of all equipment by the telephone companies, some were not.

Also, because of strong vertical integration within AT&T, the purchase of equipment from independent manufacturers was tightly controlled. AT&T initially refused to allow the indepen­dently manufactured Carter phone, a device that linked two-way-radio equipment to a telephone, to be connected to its network.

After protracted lawsuits, AT&T agreed in 1968 to allow the connection of independently manufactured telephones to its network, provided they met legal standards set by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). While the AT&T agreement did not directly involve the other telephone companies in the country, over time the entire industry followed AT&T’s lead.

In 1974, MCI Communications Corporation challenged AT&T about its right to maintain a monopoly over long-distance service. Antitrust proceedings were brought, and eventually settled in 1982 in a con­sent decree that brought about the break-up of AT&T. In a consent decree, the Federal Government agrees to stop proceedings against a company in return for restrictions on or changes in the company.

The antitrust proceedings were dropped when AT&T agreed to sell off its local operating compa­nies, retaining the long-distance network and manufacturing companies. The former AT&T operating companies were regrouped into seven Regional Holding Companies (RHCs), which were initially re­stricted from engaging in any business other than telephone service within their assigned service area.

The RHCs promptly began sidestepping these restrictions by setting up subsidiaries to operate in the unregulated environment and seeking legislation to further remove restrictions. At the same time, alter­nate long-distance carriers, such as MCI and Sprint, sought legislation to keep AT&T under as much regulation as possible while freeing themselves from any regulation.

Essay # 10. The Telephone Industry Today:

In 1996, the US Government enacted the Telecommunications Reform Act, which removed government rules preventing local and long-distance phone companies, cable television operators, broadcasters, and wireless services from directly competing with one another.

The act spurred consolidation in the indus­try, as regional companies joined forces to create telecommunications giants that provided telephone, wireless, cable, and Internet services.

In other countries, until the 1990s, most of the telephone com­panies were owned by each nation’s central government and operated as part of the post office, an arrangement that inevitably led to tight control.

Many countries are now privatizing telephone service. In order to escape government regulation at home, US companies are investing heavily in the phone systems of other countries. For example, in 1995, AT&T announced it would attempt to gain a share of the market for telephone services in India. In a reverse trend, European companies are investing in US long-distance carriers.

Other major markets for telephone companies are opening up around the globe as the developing world becomes more technologically advanced.

Non-industrial countries are now trying to leapfrog their development by encouraging private companies to install only the latest technology. In remote places in India and Africa, the use of solar cells is now making it possible to introduce telephones in areas still without electricity.

Essay # 11. Recent Developments in Telephone Technology :

The introduction of radio into the telephone set has been the most important recent development in telephone technology, permitting first the cordless phone and now the cellular phone. In addition to regular telephone service, modern cellular phones also provide wireless Internet connections, enabling users to send and receive electronic mail and search the World Wide Web.

Answering machines and phones with dials that remember several stored numbers (repertory dials) have been available for decades, but because of their expense and unreliability were never as popular as they are today.

Multifunctional telephones that use microprocessors and integrated circuits have overcome both these barriers to make repertory dials a standard feature in most phones sold today. Many multifunctional telephones also include automatic answering and message-recording capability.

Videophones are devices that use miniature video cameras to send images as well as voice commu­nication. Videophones can be connected to regular telephone lines or their messages can be sent via wireless technology.

Since the transmission of a picture requires much more bandwidth (a measure of the amount of data a system can transmit per period of time) than the transmission of voice, the high cost of transmission facilities has limited the use of videophone service.

This problem is being overcome by technologies that compress the video information, and by the steadily declining cost of transmission and video-terminal equipment. Video service is now used to hold business “teleconferences” between groups in distant cities using high-capacity transmission paths with wide bandwidth.

Videophones suit­able for conversations between individuals over the normal network are commercially available, but because they provide a picture inferior to that of a television set, have not proven very popular.

Televi­sion news organizations adopted the use of videophones to cover breaking news stories in remote areas. Their use escalated in 2001 during the US war against terrorists and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

Telecommunications companies are rapidly expanding their use of digital technology, such as Dig­ital Subscriber Line (DSL) or Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), to allow users to get more information faster over the telephone. Telecommunications companies are also investing heavily in fibre optic cable to meet the ever-increasing demand for increased bandwidth.

As bandwidth continues to improve, an instrument that functions as a telephone, computer, and television becomes more commercially viable. Such a device is now available, but its cost will likely limit its widespread use in the early pail of the 21st century.

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History of the Telephone and Telegraph in the Europe Essay

History of telegraphy in europe, transition from telegraph to telephone, development time frame, works cited.

The ancient telegraph comprised of drums, mirrors that reflected light and smoke signals. Through several attempts scientists invented a way of conveying messages through a telegraph (Brock 34). The earliest scientists Webster’s defined a telegraph as an equipment or apparatus used in communication at a distance by sending coded signals (Maximilian 12). Samuel Morse came up with the SOS code that is still in use till today (Lewis 45).

He identified this when he went for studies in Europe and on his return he discovered it while communicating with fellow passengers on electricity in the year 1832. He built his first experiment in the year 1843, between Washington and Baltimore, after obtaining a loan from the Congress. It enabled him to send his first message to Chappes system which was “what hath God wrought.”Chappes replied and told him the following “if you succeed you will bask in glory (Gabler 22).”

Bain Alexander and the Royal House made the introduction of the arrival of the patent between 1846 and 1849. This was a more advanced patent since it could send and receive printed messages by using a keyboard at both ends. It was also faster than Morse invention. Although both telegraphs had the same idea of sending messages, the new model used a discolored paper treated with chemicals to give a printed text.

Around 1851 ten different telegraph firms were established in New York. It created much competition among the firms in different cities in Europe. The competition grew stiff that the companies started losing messages without taking responsibility. This led to integration of all the competing companies to form a consolidated industry. Integration and merging of firms took place most between 1853 and 1857 (Maximilian 24).

This led to the formation and signing of the “treaty of six nations” it provided for the six large competing firms to merge together (Brock 47). The last face of integration took place between 1857 and 1866. This is when only two main firms remained namely the American Telegraph Company and the Western Union.

The Western union had an advantage over the competing firm leading to the federal government to respond by introducing legislation bills (Gabler 28). Most of the bills were opposed by the Western Union and the few that passed only helped the Western industry to monopolize the market. The arrival of Jay Gould with his Pacific and Atlantic Telegraph company in 1874 posed great danger to the Western (Lewis 49).

This made the Western Union agree to join hands together with the new company in 1881. A more dangerous competitor arrived in 1880s. This is the Postal Telegraph Company that was headed by John Mackey. He made a network through buying of less economic firms and merging together to form a network with a wide economic scale to create competition against the Western Union although it did not bore much fruits (Maximilian 36).

A transition is a turning point from one face to another. Telegraphs were invented long a way in 1830s. They served people while developing from stage to stage until in 1876 when Alexander Graham introduced the new technology of the bell patents (telephone). It was largely referred to as the talking telegraph (Gabler 36).

The arrival of the new technology posed a lot of pressure on the telegraph owners by over talking through their market. This found the Western Union at cross roads. They had to decide on investing or continue getting more profit from the then flourishing telegraph business. The management made a wrong choice to stick on their telegraph mission without focusing ahead (Brock 56).

The Alexander Graham’s taking telegraph took over the local communication rating up to 97%. This was after the long telephone lines and posts were erected throughout the nation It had had now defeated the telegraph in the local competition (Lewis, 52). The same trend was transferred to the international market where the talking telegraph was highly appreciated by people of all walks of life.

Telegraph is appreciated for accelerating industrialization in the American states (Brock 34). It also made business dealings easy through sending of messages from one are to another. This mode of communication faced a stiff competition from the telephone until it got faced off (Lewis 58).

The main reason why the telegraph got defeated is that the management preferred financial matters like the money orders (Gabler 47). There are some services that were set by the telegraphs and are still in operation. A good example is the telegram that cost $9.95 for every 250 words. The telephone has really improved its outlook and what gave rise to the current mobile phones (Maximilian 38).

Brock, Gerald W. The Telecommunications Industry: The Dynamics of Market Structure . Harvard University Press, 2001

Coe, Lewis. 2009. The Telegraph, Chicago: SAGE, 2009

Gabler, Edwin. The American Telegrapher: A Social History, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2005.

Maximilian Victor Berthold, History of the Telephone and Telegraph in the Argentine New York: Free press, 2004.

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History Of Telephone Essay Example

• Pages: 10 (2634 words)
• Published: June 7, 2018
• Type: Essay

DeVry University History of the telephone * Introduction

The telephone, one of the greatest American inventions, has evolved from a non-essential item to a necessity that people cannot live without. It has had numerous impacts on society and revolutionized communication, playing a significant role in our present-day world. By facilitating global communication, the telephone has contributed to the formation of personal and business cultures, enabling individuals from different nations to easily connect.

The thesis statement acknowledges the initial doubt surrounding the telephone's replacement of the telegram system. However, as time passed, this new form of communication has become one of the most significant inventions and gained widespread admiration. The text examines the historical background during that period (mentioning author and date). Communication was predominantly restricted to person-to-person message delivery less than 150 years ago. As scientific knowledge adva

nced and understanding about electricity transfer emerged, inventors began experimenting with implementing this concept in communication. These efforts resulted in groundbreaking inventions that connected people from around the globe. The telegraph was among the first means of immediate communication made possible.

In 1844, Samuel Moor achieved the first successful transmission of a message using a telegraph (Cason, 1910). This groundbreaking invention powered by a battery ushered in a plethora of new creations. With the telegraph's ability to transmit messages, the field of communication experienced significant advances. One of the most important and influential inventions in history was the telephone, which Alexander Bell initially referred to as the speaking telegraph. The telephone revolutionized communication by enabling the transmission of spoken voice instead of relying on dots and dashes like the telegraph. Bell accomplished this by incorporating a microphone and a speaker int

the telegraph line at each end.

During the period when Alexander Graham Bell made his discovery (author and date should be inserted here), there was a significant climate that contributed to his advancement. Bell, who was originally from Scotland, worked alongside his father Melville Bell in London. Melville Bell had developed a written system called Visible Speech, which was used to teach the deaf how to speak. In the 1870s, the Bell family relocated to Boston, Massachusetts. In this new location, Alexander Bell found employment as a teacher for the deaf and dedicated much of his time to studying sound and acoustics (Count Du. Moncel Theadore, 1879).

With the help of Thomas Watson, Alexander Bell discovered that it was possible to transmit not just individual sound tones, but also complex sound waves like the human voice, over a telegraph wire. This realization occurred in March of 1876, when Bell sent a message to Watson saying "come here, I need you." Watson heard this message through the receiver and was filled with excitement (Count Du. Moncel Theadore, 1879). III.

Effects of Advancement * Discuss the advancement in detail (insert author and date) Bell came up with a method of transmitting multiple tones on a telegraph wire by using a multi-reed device known as a telephone. In 1875, Bell created an acoustic telegraph (Cason, 1910). On March 10, 1876, Bell successfully made his telephone function by utilizing a liquid transmitter (Boettinger, 1983). The movement of the diaphragm caused a needle to vibrate in the water, which altered the electrical resistance.

On March 7, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell, aged 29, received a patent for his revolutionary invention called the telephone (Count Du. Moncel Theadore, 1879). Interestingly enough, the telephone initially did not gain immediate popularity. In fact, Western Union, the leading telecommunication company of that era, rejected Bell's offer to sell them the patent for $100 thousand dollars (FCC, 1939). Nevertheless, as time passed by, public interest in this novel communication device started to grow. Eventually, in 1877, Western Union reconsidered their earlier decision and approached Bell with an intention to acquire both the telephone and his company.

Bell refused to give up because he recognized the potential of his invention (FCC, 1939). In 1877, the Bell Telephone Company was founded with the aim of making telephones accessible to everyone (FCC, 1939). The company conducted initial public demonstrations using a design similar to the earlier magnetic coil membrane units. One notable demonstration took place in June 1876 at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Subsequent tests and improvements were made to the equipment.

On October 9, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell tested his telephone by establishing a two-way connection between Boston and Cambridge Port, Massachusetts over a distance of approximately five kilometers or slightly over three miles (Cason, 1910). The first practical use of the telephone for business purposes occurred in May 1877 when telephones were installed in the offices of customers of the E. T. Holmes burglar alarm company (FCC, 1939).

The early telephone transmitters were not performing well, prompting several inventors to continue working in this field. One of these inventors was Thomas Alva Edison. In 1886, he designed a voice transmitter that involved a cavity filled with carbonized anthracite coal granules (Boettinger, 1983). These carbon granules were placed between two electrodes through which a constant electric current flowed. One

electrode was connected to a thin iron diaphragm. When sound waves caused the diaphragm to vibrate, the carbon granules were compressed and released alternately. This fluctuation in the distance across the granules resulted in variations in the electric current's resistance. These variations in current were then transmitted to the receiver. Edison's carbon transmitter was simple, effective, inexpensive, and durable enough to become the basis for standard telephone transmitter design until the 1970s (Boettinger, 1983).

The impact of advancements on the humanities during the (insert author and date) era is discussed. Initially, after the invention of the telephone, all subscribers in a specific area were interconnected through a telephone line. To make a call, individuals would ring the desired recipient across the line. However, numerous technical issues and public concern led to the development of exchange systems and switchboards. These systems allowed all lines to converge at a central office, enabling connections with other lines using a switchboard. Technological progress also brought about changes in gender representation in the workforce. Initially, most operators were men, but in 1978, women started being hired. It took a few more years for their gentle and poised demeanor, as well as their ability to communicate calmly and pleasantly, to be recognized and valued.

When mobile phones were first introduced, people saw them as a specialized form of telephone service that could be useful for various mobile professions like craftsmen, photographers, and repairmen (Brock, 1981). However, the significance of mobile phones for personal communication was greatly underestimated. According to Boettinger (1983), a similar perception existed in the 1870s when the telephone was introduced, as it was seen as a luxury mainly for businessmen,

doctors, and craftsmen.

Previously considered less valuable than the telegraph, the telephone has now established itself as a means of communication within social circles. It has integrated into our mainstream culture, resulting in the development of various practices and habits. Similar to how pre-industrial societies would create songs about farming activities, rock music from the fifties onwards frequently centers around cars and motorbikes.

In the contemporary IT era, songs about mobile phones are frequently heard as they have had a significant influence on our lives. Mobile devices have transformed our behaviors and expectations. When someone is running behind schedule for a meeting, it has become customary to notify others by placing a phone call on their mobile phones. There is no longer a necessity to plan ahead and agree upon a specific time and location to meet; individuals can now easily contact each other through their mobile devices and share their current whereabouts.

People have a conflicting perspective on their phones, appreciating the freedom and technology they offer, along with the prestige of owning expensive ones. However, they dislike the constant connectivity to work and the inability to disconnect. Some individuals also resent how others utilize their phones, like loud businesspeople on trains or teenagers playing music loudly on buses. Additionally, mobile phones face criticism for their negative impact on language.

The emergence of innovative spelling techniques due to the demand for concise messages has been a result of the rise of text messaging. Txtspk, despite facing criticism for its perceived negative impact on English language skills and literacy rates, has become the most popular means of communication among teenagers. 66% of teenagers confess a preference for texting friends

over engaging in phone conversations.

There are new rules in place for using mobile phones in public places like theatres, cinemas, and restaurants. Despite the widespread agreement that answering a phone during a theatre performance is very impolite, unfortunately, this behavior continues to happen. The mobile phone, similar to past technological advancements such as steam trains, motor cars, rock music, and computer games, has both dedicated followers and critics who believe it contributes to societal problems. In [Author's Name] [Date], we will explore the influence of this technological advancement on the world by looking at important historical events that have shaped the future.

The changes mentioned in the text affect not only local or national levels, but can also have a global impact. Telephones have been beneficial for various professionals such as physicians, police, fire, and emergency workers ever since they became accessible to the public. Furthermore, phones have facilitated social decentralization by encouraging people to move out of cities and by enabling more flexible work arrangements. The global interconnection of businesses through wireless internet services available on cell phones has not only transformed marketing practices but also influenced politics. The inclusion of cameras on phones has played a pivotal role in generating a new wave of citizen journalists. In the Middle East, for example, protesters have utilized this tool to both advance democracy and organize grassroots activities. Consequently, this has led to a more public feedback system, making the world feel smaller and promoting increased contact among individuals from diverse nations. Ultimately, such developments can contribute to fostering peace worldwide.

The introduction of wireless cell phones has brought about advancements in networked communications. Although instant messaging has

had a detrimental impact on the postal service's business, it has created new job prospects in telecommunication. Furthermore, the telephone has transformed the way information is transmitted. Additionally, we will delve into this progression's evolution along with the inclusion of author and date. It is worth noting that earlier iterations of telephones were unwieldy.

Initially, telephone calls required a connection between the caller and another person via an operator. Additionally, the microphone's limited sensitivity meant that the phone was better at receiving calls than transmitting them. Operators had to manually disconnect and reconnect sockets on switchboards to connect calls. However, as more people desired telephones, the switchboard system needed upgrading. The advancement of telephone technology led to an increase in demand for its services.

According to Cason (1910), the telephone had 50,000 subscribers from its invention until 1880. Nevertheless, it took nearly a century for significant enhancements to occur within the system. Users were no longer reliant on operators for connections and could now establish them independently. As technology progressed, there was an increased demand for improved telephones. The twentieth century witnessed the telephone becoming a primary means of communication. In 1878, the idea of integrating the transmitter and receiver in one handle was introduced in instruments used by telephone operators in a New York City exchange.

Charles Williams, Jr. introduced the earliest telephone instrument in 1882. This instrument, designed for wall mounting, included a ringer, hand-cranked magneto, hand receiver, switch hook, and transmitter. Different versions of this telephone were used in the United States until the 1950s. The traditional rotary dialer was invented in the 1890s and operated using a spring and mechanical governor. Desk instruments were

first built in 1897.

Patterned after the wall-mounted telephone, they usually consisted of a separate receiver and transmitter. * Discuss effects of advancement on later time periods (insert author and date) In 1927, however, the American Telephone ; Telegraph Company (AT;T) introduced the E1A handset with a combined transmitter-receiver arrangement (AT;T, 1992). The first telephone to combine all station apparatus components into one instrument was the combined set of 1937 (Brock, 1981). Approximately 25 million of these instruments were produced until they were replaced by a new design in 1949. The 1949 telephone was a completely innovative model, incorporating significant advancements in audio quality, mechanical design, and physical construction. Push-button versions of this set became available in 1963 (AT;T, 1992).

In the 1980s, cordless telephones became popular as they provided limited mobility within a home or office, allowing users to move up to a hundred meters away from the telephone instrument. These phones functioned as wireless extensions to existing wiring, communicating with a base unit connected to a telephone jack. Initially, analog modulation methods were used and they operated on a pair of frequencies. The Bell Telephone Company maintained tight control over its patents to prevent competition in the telephone industry. However, when these patents expired in 1893 and 1894, independent telephone companies emerged in various cities and small towns. Eventually, around 80 percent of customers in the United States and many in Canada were served by AT;T after a period of consolidation in the early 1900s.

AT;T acquired the Bell Telephone Company in 1900 (AT;T, 1992). This previously stagnant technology has since become the paramount means of communication in our lives. The introduction of commercial mobile telephony

can be traced back to 1946 (Brock, 1981), while public mobile telephone usage emerged in the post-World War II era of the 1940s (Brock, 1981). Despite the existence of rudimentary mobile telephones before the war, these devices were primarily government or industry-specific two-way radios that required manual connection to the landline telephone network. In fact, Manhattan fireboats and tugboats were equipped with such radiotelephones as early as the 1930s.

These were private services. Commercial mobile telephony began in 1946 when a wireless device connected the public switched telephone network and was offered to the general public by a common carrier or public utility. The mobile phone has become the favored communication hub for the majority of Americans. V. Conclusion * Recap thesis statement The importance of Alexander Graham Bell on today's society is visible, or rather audible, everywhere.

The telephone has undergone significant advancements in tone dialing, call tracing, music on hold, and electronic ringers, revolutionizing its functionality. This incredible invention has enabled global communication around the clock, accelerating progress and fostering receptivity to change. Bell's invention has greatly served humanity and will remain a valuable asset for society in the future. Additionally, the mobile phone has notably liberated us from spatial limitations, which is perhaps the most intriguing aspect of this technological development. These advancements have significantly impacted the humanities and the world at large.

It is unfortunate that mobile phones were not available when humans first existed on the savannah. If they were, people would have used them to communicate and say, "Light the fire, honey, because I'll be home soon with half a lion." Mobile telephony is more than just radio waves and electronics; it

is about human communication. Talking to each other has always been important for our survival, even from the day we started walking upright. Communication is crucial for our existence, and without it, telecommunications and society as a whole would not exist.

AT;T archives in Warren, NJ provides a reference to events in the history of telecommunications (AT;T, 1992, p. P).

242. Boettinger, H. M. (1983). The Telephone Book: Bell, Watson, Vail, and American life.

The text below should beand unified while keeping the and their contents:

2nd edition. New York: Stearn Publishers. Page 230.

ISBN 0-9612186-0-6. Brock. W. G.

(1981). The Telecommunications Industry: The Dynamics of Market Structure. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. p. 336.

ISBN 0-674-87285-1. Cason. N. H. (1910). The History of the Telephone.

Chicago: A. C. McClurg. p.

315. ISBN 0-8369-6608-2. Count Du Moncel Theadore. A. L.

(1879). The Telephone, the Microphone, and the Phonograph. New York: Harper. p.

363. ISBN 0-405-06039-4. Federal Communications Commission (FCC). (1939).

Investigation of the Telephone Industry in the United States. 76th Congress, 1st Session, House Document 340. P. 661.

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New York Today

Will history remember michael cohen.

The testimony this week by Donald Trump’s former fixer could be a footnote or something more, historians said.

By James Barron

Good morning. It’s Tuesday. Today we’ll review Michael Cohen’s testimony at Donald Trump’s hush-money trial — and look at whether it was historically significant. We’ll also get details on the first day of the corruption trial of Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey.

In a trial that has already had some never-before days, Monday was another: Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former fixer-turned- archenemy, described a $130,000 hush-money payment to the porn actress Stormy Daniels .

“Just take care of it,” Cohen said Trump told him.

Cohen told the jury that Daniels’s story of a tryst in a Nevada hotel room posed a “catastrophic” threat to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Cohen paid Daniels himself, and he testified that Trump had approved a plan to reimburse him after the election. That repayment is the basis of the 34 felony counts against Trump, which charge that he falsified business records by putting the reimbursement in the category of ordinary business expenses.

The jury heard from Daniels last week as prosecutors laid the groundwork for Cohen’s appearance in the first criminal trial of an American president. His testimony prompted the question of how big a moment Cohen’s appearance was.

“Is it a moment that matters is the question,” Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton, said.

“If this trial leads to a conviction and somehow that conviction changes the politics of 2024 and he does not win re-election, it will matter more,” he said. But if it does not have a dramatic effect and Trump is re-elected, whether convicted or not, Zelizer said he doubted that Cohen’s testimony “will be of that much interest, other than a few lines in the history books.”

“It is a wait-and-see situation,” he said.

Timothy Naftali, who teaches about the presidency at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, likened Cohen to John Dean, the White House counsel in the Nixon administration whose testimony before a congressional committee helped to bring down Richard Nixon.

“This is not the same as Watergate — the issues are different — but the central questions of conspiracy and cover-up, they’re the same,” Naftali said. “The challenge for the prosecutors is to make this closer to Watergate. Watergate was a breaking and entering, but it was clearly always designed to affect an election. Here we have hush money and illegal accounting, but the effort alleged by the prosecutors was the same — the desire to influence an American election.”

On Monday Cohen tied Trump directly to the hush-money payment, recounting a five-minute telephone call with Trump 11 days before the election in 2016. He said he told Trump that the Daniels “matter is completely under control and locked down.”

Cohen’s effort to keep Trump posted echoed testimony from two earlier witnesses, Keith Davidson, Daniels’s lawyer at the time, and Hope Hicks, a former Trump spokeswoman. They both indicated that Cohen would not have acted on his own — he would have gotten clearance from Trump.

Cohen apparently relished doing whatever Trump wanted — my colleague Maggie Haberman wrote that “Cohen was something of a Trump fanboy.” “The only thing that was on my mind was to accomplish the task, to make him happy,” Cohen testified on Monday.

But there was something else on his mind: He wanted to hear Trump say what a good job he had done. Cohen testified that when Trump did, he felt that “I was on top of the world.”

He said he reported only to Trump when he worked at the Trump Organization. “It was whatever he wanted,” Cohen said.

The prosecution replayed a recording that jurors had heard earlier in the trial, of a conversation he had with Trump about another deal, to silence Karen McDougal, a Playboy model who said she had had a 10-month affair with Trump.

Cohen said that he made the recording to show David Pecker of The National Enquirer, who struck the deal to pay McDougal $150,000, that Trump planned to pay him back — something that Trump never did.

Senator J.D. Vance, a Republican of Ohio who is in contention to be Trump’s running mate, joined Trump’s entourage in court. Also on hand were Senator Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama, and Representative Nicole Malliotakis of New York.

Vance attacked Cohen and other participants in the trial in social media posts and at a news conference.

That was several hours after three men in Trump hats had gathered for a demonstration in the same park where Vance had spoken. One, Dion Cini, from Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, had brought 14 large Trump flags.

He said the turnout was “definitely depressing, because Trump has asked people to come multiple times.”

Prepare for rain and temperatures in the mid-70s. Expect a chance of thunderstorms at night, with temperatures in the high 50s.

ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING

In effect until May 27 (Memorial Day).

The latest New York news

Attack on Steve Buscemi : The actor, who starred in “Boardwalk Empire,” was assaulted by a stranger on Wednesday morning. He was treated at Bellevue Hospital.

Mayor Eric Adams praises Rome’s migrant aid : It didn’t take long for Adams to say what he liked about a welcome center for migrants and asylum seekers that he visited in Rocca di Papa, about 15 miles outside Rome.

The underdog at Westminster : An animal whisperer and her feisty mutt, Miles, were among the hopefuls at the dog show’s agility competition.

Cyberattack at Christie’s : Estimates are still soaring past the $20 million mark, and canvases still bear the signatures of dependable ringers like Warhol, Basquiat and Picasso. But there is a shadow looming over the spring auction season that began Monday.

George Clooney’s Broadway debut : A stage adaptation of the film “Good Night, and Good Luck” is planned for next spring, with Clooney playing the journalist Edward R. Murrow.

Meanwhile, at the Menendez trial

As of Monday, the Trump trial is not the only major court proceeding that is going on in Lower Manhattan.

The corruption trial of Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey and the former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, began in Federal District Court at about the same time Trump took his seat at the defense table in the Manhattan Criminal Courts Building, a five-minute walk away.

Jury selection began, but by the end of the day, no jurors had been selected.

My colleagues Tracey Tully and Maia Coleman write that Menendez has represented New Jersey in Congress for three decades, but prosecutors in the Southern District of New York brought the case. The jurors — who will be asked to consider the evidence against him and two New Jersey businessmen — will come from Manhattan, the Bronx or several counties north of New York City.

All three men have pleaded not guilty. Menendez, who has said that he expects to be exonerated, has left open the possibility of running for re-election in November.

His wife, Nadine Menendez, will be tried separately this summer.

St. Patrick’s Day, ’78

Dear Diary:

It was St. Patrick’s Day in 1978. After returning from a party in Brooklyn thoroughly inebriated, I had settled into a deep sleep in the duplex condo on West 10th Street where I was living at the time.

I was awakened by a phone call. The woman on the other end explained that my roommate, Joe, had arranged for her to stay overnight at our apartment. Her name was Matilda.

Fifteen minutes later she rang our bell. When she climbed the four flights to the condo’s first floor, I couldn’t open the door from the inside. I directed her to the upstairs entrance and then to an empty bedroom on the apartment’s second floor.

“You can sleep there,” I told her.

The next day, I returned home after working a rare Saturday and spent the day with her. We watched “Saturday Night Live” together that night.

On Sunday, I took her on the Circle Line and to the Statue of Liberty. Later, we had dinner near Columbus Circle, where she had a hotel room for one night paid for by the company she was to interview at Monday morning.

It was love at first sight for me, and we began a long-distance romance, going back and forth between New York City and her home in St. Louis.

By October we were married, and we later settled in Charlotte, N.C., staying together for 45 years together until her death last October.

— James Chase

Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here .

Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.

P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee . You can find all our puzzles here .

Hannah Fidelman and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].

Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.

James Barron writes the New York Today newsletter, a morning roundup of what’s happening in the city. More about James Barron