Telephone prehistory[edit]

Mechanical devices[edit]

A 19th century acoustic 'tin can', or 'lover's' telephone

Before the invention of electromagnetic telephones, mechanical acoustic devices existed for transmitting
speech and music over a distance greater than that of normal direct speech. The earliest mechanical
telephones were based on sound transmission through pipes or other physical media.[1] The acoustic tin can
telephone, or lover's phone, has been known for centuries. It connects two diaphragms with a taut string or
wire, which transmits sound by mechanical vibrations from one to the other along the wire (and not by
a modulated electric current). The classic example is the children's toy made by connecting the bottoms of two
paper cups, metal cans, or plastic bottles with tautly held string.[1][2]
Among the earliest known experiments were those conducted by the British physicist and polymath Robert
Hooke from 1664 to 1685.[1][3] An acoustic string phone made in 1667 is attributed to him.[4]
For a short period of time, acoustic telephones were marketed commercially as a niche competitor to the
electrical telephone. When Alexander Graham Bell's telephone patent expired and many new telephone
manufacturers began competing, acoustic telephone makers quickly went out of business. Their maximum
range was very limited.[2] An example of one such company was the Pulsion Telephone Supply Company
created by Lemuel Mellett in Massachusetts, which designed its version in 1888 and deployed it on railroad
right-of-ways.
Additionally, speaking tubes have long been common, especially within buildings and aboard ships, and are
still in use today. [5]
Electrical devices[edit]
Main article: Electrical telegraph
The telephone emerged from the making and successive improvements of the electrical telegraph. In
1804, Spanish polymath and scientist Francisco Salva Campilloconstructed an electrochemical
telegraph.[6] The first working telegraph was built by the English inventor Francis Ronalds in 1816 and used
static electricity.[7] An electromagnetic telegraph was created by Baron Schilling in 1832. Carl Friedrich
Gauss and Wilhelm Weber built another electromagnetic telegraph in 1833 in Göttingen.

Bell prototype telephone stamp

Centennial Issue of 1976

The electrical telegraph was first commercialised by Sir William Fothergill Cooke and entered use on the Great
Western Railway in England. It ran for 13 mi (21 km) from Paddington station to West Drayton and came into
operation on April 9, 1839.
Another electrical telegraph was independently developed and patented in the United States in 1837
by Samuel Morse. His assistant, Alfred Vail, developed the Morse code signaling alphabet with Morse.
America's first telegram was sent by Morse on January 6, 1838, across 2 miles (3 km) of wiring.

Invention of the telephone[edit]

Main article: Invention of the telephone
Credit for the invention of the electric telephone is frequently disputed, and new controversies over the issue
have arisen from time to time. Charles Bourseul, Innocenzo Manzetti, Antonio Meucci, Johann Philipp
Reis, Alexander Graham Bell, and Elisha Gray, amongst others, have all been credited with the telephone's
invention. The early history of the telephone became and still remains a confusing morass of claims and
counterclaims, which were not clarified by the huge mass of lawsuits to resolve the patent claims of many
individuals and commercial competitors. The Bell and Edison patents, however, were commercially decisive,
because they dominated telephone technology and were upheld by court decisions in the United States.

Antonio Meucci, 1854, constructed telephone-like devices.

Johann Philipp Reis, 1860, constructed prototype 'make-and-break' telephones, today called Reis telephone.

Alexander Graham Bellwas awarded the first U.S. patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876.


 Elisha Gray, 1876, designed a telephone using a water microphone in Highland Park, Illinois.

Tivadar Puskásproposed the telephone switchboard exchange in 1876.

Thomas Edison invented the carbon microphonewhich produced a strong telephone signal.
The modern telephone is the result of work of many people.[8] Alexander Graham Bell was, however, the first to
patent the telephone, as an "apparatus for transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically". Bell has most
often been credited as the inventor of the first practical telephone. However, in Germany Johann Philipp Reis is
seen as a leading telephone pioneer who stopped only just short of a successful device, and as well the Italian-
American inventor and businessman Antonio Meucci has been recognized by the U.S. House of
Representatives for his contributory work on the telephone.[9] Several other controversies also surround the
question of priority of invention for the telephone.
The Elisha Gray and Alexander Bell telephone controversy considers the question of whether Bell and Gray
invented the telephone independently and, if not, whether Bell stole the invention from Gray. This controversy
is narrower than the broader question of who deserves credit for inventing the telephone, for which there are
several claimants.
The Canadian Parliamentary Motion on Alexander Graham Bell article reviews the controversial June 2002
United States House of Representatives resolution recognizing Meucci's contributions 'in' the invention of the
telephone (not 'for' the invention of the telephone). The same resolution was not passed in the U.S. Senate,
thus labeling the House resolution as "political rhetoric". A subsequent counter-motion was unanimously
passed in Canada's Parliament 10 days later which declared Bell its inventor. This webpage examines critical
aspects of both the parliamentary motion and the congressional resolution.
Invention of the telephone exchange[edit]
The main users of the electrical telegraph were post offices, railway stations, the more important governmental
centers (ministries), stock exchanges, very few nationally distributed newspapers, the largest internationally
important corporations, and wealthy individuals.[10] Telegraph exchanges worked mainly on a store and
forward basis. Although telephones devices were in use before the invention of the telephone exchange, their
success and economical operation would have been impossible with the schema and structure of the
contemporary telegraph systems.
Prior to the invention of the telephone switchboard, pairs of telephones were connected directly with each
other, which was primarily useful for connecting a home to the owner's business.[11] A telephone
exchange provides telephone service for a small area. Either manually by operators, or automatically by
machine switching equipment, it interconnects individual subscriber lines for calls made between them. This
made it possible for subscribers to call each other at homes, businesses, or public spaces. These made
telephony an available and comfortable communication tool for many purposes, and it gave the impetus for the
creation of a new industrial sector.
The telephone exchange was an idea of the Hungarian engineer Tivadar Puskás (1844 - 1893) in 1876, while
he was working for Thomas Edison on a telegraph exchange.[12][13][14][15][16] The first commercial telephone
exchange was opened at New Haven, Connecticut with 21 subscribers on 28 January 1878,[17] in a storefront of
the Boardman Building in New Haven, Connecticut. George W. Coy designed and built the world's first
switchboard for commercial use. Coy was inspired by Alexander Graham Bell's lecture at the Skiff Opera
House in New Haven on 27 April 1877.[17]
In Bell's lecture, during which a three-way telephone connection with Hartford and Middletown,
Connecticut was demonstrated, he first discussed the idea of a telephone exchange for the conduct of
business and trade. On 3 November 1877, Coy applied for and received a franchise from the Bell Telephone
Company for New Haven and Middlesex Counties. Coy, along with Herrick P. Frost and Walter Lewis, who
provided the capital, established the District Telephone Company of New Haven on 15 January 1878.[17]
The switchboard built by Coy was, according to one source, constructed of "carriage bolts, handles from teapot
lids and bustle wire." According to the company records, all the furnishings of the office, including the
switchboard, were worth less than forty dollars. While the switchboard could connect as many as sixty-four
customers, only two conversations could be handled simultaneously and six connections had to be made for
each call.[17]
The District Telephone Company of New Haven went into operation with only twenty-one subscribers, who
paid $1.50 per month. By 21 February 1878, however, when the first telephone directory was published by the
company, fifty subscribers were listed. Most of these were businesses and listings such as physicians, the
police, and the post office; only eleven residences were listed, four of which were for persons associated with
the company.[17]
The New Haven District Telephone Company grew quickly and was reorganized several times in its first years.
By 1880, the company had the right from the Bell Telephone Company to service all of Connecticut and
western Massachusetts. As it expanded, the company was first renamed Connecticut Telephone, and
then Southern New England Telephone in 1882.[17] The site of the first telephone exchange was granted a
designation as a National Historic Landmark on 23 April 1965. However it was withdrawn in 1973 in order to
demolish the building and construct a parking garage.[17] In 1887 Puskás introduced the multiplex switchboard,
that had an epochal significance in the further development of telephone exchange.[18]

Early telephone developments[edit]

Main article: Timeline of the telephone
See also: History of telecommunication
The following is a brief summary of the history of the development of the telephone: [[Fil e:CNAM-IMG
0564.jpg|thumb|A French Gower telephone of 1912 at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris]]

 1667: Robert Hooke invented a string telephone that conveyed sounds over an extended wire by
mechanical vibrations. It was to be termed an 'acoustic' or 'mechanical' (non-electrical) telephone.
 1753: Charles Morrison proposes the idea that electricity can be used to transmit messages, by using
different wires for each letter.[19]
 1844: Innocenzo Manzetti first mooted the idea of a "speaking telegraph" (telephone).
 1854: Charles Bourseul writes a memorandum on the principles of the telephone. (See the article:
"Transmission électrique de la parole", L'Illustration, Paris, 26 August 1854.)
 1854: Antonio Meucci demonstrates an electric voice-operated device in New York; it is not clear what kind
of device he demonstrated.
 1861: Philipp Reis constructs the first speech-transmitting telephone
 28 December 1871: Antonio Meucci files a patent caveat (No. 3353, a notice of intent to invent, but not a
formal patent application) at the U.S. Patent Office for a device he named "Sound Telegraph".[20]
 1872: Elisha Gray establishes Western Electric Manufacturing Company.
 1 July 1875: Bell uses a bi-directional "gallows" telephone that was able to transmit "voicelike sounds", but
not clear speech. Both the transmitter and the receiver were identical membrane electromagnet
instruments.
 1875: Thomas Edison experiments with acoustic telegraphy and in November builds an electro-dynamic
receiver, but does not exploit it.
 1875: Hungarian Tivadar Puskas (the inventor of telephone exchange) arrived in the USA.
 6 April 1875: Bell's U.S. Patent 161,739 "Transmitters and Receivers for Electric Telegraphs" is granted.
This uses multiple vibrating steel reeds in make-break circuits, and the concept of multiplexed frequencies.
 20 January 1876: Bell signs and notarizes his patent application for the telephone.
 11 February 1876: Elisha Gray designs a liquid transmitter for use with a telephone, but does not build
one.
 7 March 1876: Bell's U.S. patent No. 174,465 for the telephone is granted.
 10 March 1876: Bell transmits the sentence: "Mr. Watson, come here! I want to see you!" using a liquid
transmitter and an electromagnetic receiver.
 30 January 1877: Bell's U.S. patent No. 186,787 is granted for an electromagnetic telephone using
permanent magnets, iron diaphragms, and a call bell.
 27 April 1877: Edison files for a patent on a carbon (graphite) transmitter. Patent No. 474,230 was granted
on 3 May 1892, after a 15-year delay because of litigation. Edison was granted patent No. 222,390 for a
carbon granules transmitter in 1879.
 6 October 1877: the Scientific American publishes the invention from Bell - at that time still without a ringer.
 25 October 1877: the article in the Scientific American is discussed at the Telegraphenamt in Berlin
 12 November 1877: The first commercial telephone company enters telephone business in Friedrichsberg
close to Berlin[21] using the Siemens pipe as ringer and telephone devices built by Siemens.
 1877: The first experimental Telephone Exchange in Boston.
 1877: First long-distance telephone line
 1877:Emile Berliner invented the telephone transmitter.
 28 January 1878: The first commercial US telephone exchange opened in New Haven, Connecticut.
 1887: Tivadar Puskás introduced the multiplex switchboard.
 1915: First U.S. coast-to-coast long-distance telephone call, ceremonially inaugurated by A.G. Bell in New
York City and his former assistant Thomas Augustus Watson in San Francisco, California.

Early commercial instruments[edit]

1917 wall telephone, open to show magneto and local battery

Early telephones were technically diverse. Some used liquid transmitters which soon went out of use. Some
were dynamic: their diaphragms vibrated a coil of wire in the field of a permanent magnet or vice versa.
Such sound-powered telephonessurvived in small numbers through the 20th century in military and maritime
applications where the ability to create its own electrical power was crucial. Most, however, used
Edison/Berliner carbon transmitters, which were much louder than the other kinds, even though they
required induction coils, actually acting as impedance matching transformers to make it compatible to the line
impedance. The Edison patents kept the Bell monopoly viable into the 20th century, by which time telephone
networks were more important than the instrument.
Early telephones were locally powered, using a dynamic transmitter or else powering the transmitter with
a local battery. One of the jobs of outside plant personnel was to visit each telephone periodically to inspect the
battery. During the 20th century, "common battery" operation came to dominate, powered by "talk battery" from
the telephone exchange over the same wires that carried the voice signals. Late in the century, wireless
handsets brought a revival of local battery power.
The earliest telephones had only one wire for both transmitting and receiving of audio, and used a ground
return path, as was found in telegraph systems. The earliest dynamic telephones also had only one opening for
sound, and the user alternately listened and spoke (rather, shouted) into the same hole. Sometimes the
instruments were operated in pairs at each end, making conversation more convenient but also more
expensive.

Historical marker commemorating the first telephone central office in New York State (1878)

At first, the benefits of a switchboard exchange were not exploited. Instead, telephones were leased in pairs to
the subscriber, for example one for his home and one for his shop, and the subscriber had to arrange with
telegraph contractors to construct a line between them. Users who wanted the ability to speak to three or four
different shops, suppliers etc. would obtain and set up three or four pairs of telephones. Western Union,
already using telegraph exchanges, quickly extended the principle to its telephones in New York City and San
Francisco, and Bell was not slow in appreciating the potential.
Signaling began in an appropriately primitive manner. The user alerted the other end, or the exchange
operator, by whistling into the transmitter. Exchange operation soon resulted in telephones being equipped
with a bell, first operated over a second wire and later with the same wire using a condenser. Telephones
connected to the earliest Strowger automatic exchanges had seven wires, one for the knife switch, one for
each telegraph key, one for the bell, one for the push button and two for speaking.
Rural and other telephones that were not on a common battery exchange had hand cranked "magneto"
generators to produce an alternating current to ring the bells of other telephones on the line and to alert the
exchange operator.
In 1877 and 1878, Edison invented and developed the carbon microphone used in all telephones along with
the Bell receiver until the 1980s. After protracted patent litigation, a federal court ruled in 1892 that Edison and
not Emile Berliner was the inventor of the carbon microphone. The carbon microphone was also used in radio
broadcasting and public address work through the 1920s.
1896 Telephone (Sweden)

In the 1890s a new smaller style of telephone was introduced, the candlestick telephone, packaged in three
parts. The transmitter stood on a stand, known as a "candlestick" for its shape, hence the name. When not in
use, the receiver hung on a hook with a switch in it, known as a "switchhook." Previous telephones required
the user to operate a separate switch to connect either the voice or the bell. With the new kind, the user was
less likely to leave the phone "off the hook". In phones connected to magneto exchanges, the bell, induction
coil, battery, and magneto were in a separate bell box called a "ringer box." In phones connected to common
battery exchanges, the ringer box was installed under a desk, or other out of the way place, since it did not
need a battery or magneto.
Cradle designs were also used at this time, having a handle with the receiver and transmitter attached,
separate from the cradle base that housed the magneto crank and other parts. They were larger than the
"candlestick" and more popular.
Disadvantages of single wire operation such as crosstalk and hum from nearby AC power wires had already
led to the use of twisted pairs and, for long distance telephones, four-wire circuits. Users at the beginning of
the 20th century did not place long distance calls from their own telephones but made an appointment to use a
special sound proofed long distance telephone booth furnished with the latest technology.
Around 1893, the country leading the world in telephones per 100 persons (teledensity) was Sweden with 0.55
in the whole country but 4 in Stockholm (10,000 out of a total of 27,658 subscribers).[22] This compares with 0.4
in USA for that year.[23] Telephone service in Sweden developed through a variety of institutional forms:
the International Bell Telephone Company (a U.S. multinational), town and village co-operatives, the General
Telephone Company of Stockholm (a Swedish private company), and the Swedish Telegraph Department (part
of the Swedish government). Since Stockholm consists of islands, telephone service offered relatively large
advantages, but had to use submarine cables extensively. Competition between Bell Telephone and General
Telephone, and later between General Telephone and the Swedish Telegraph Dept., was intense.
In 1893, the U.S. was considerably behind Sweden, New Zealand, Switzerland, and Norway in teledensity. The
U.S. became the world leadership in teledensity with the rise of many independent telephone companies after
the Bell patents expired in 1893 and 1894.

20th century developments[edit]

Old Receiver schematic, c.1906

A German rotary dial telephone, the W48

Top of cellular telephone tower

By 1904 over three million phones in the U.S.[24] were connected by manual switchboard exchanges. By 1914,
the U.S. was the world leader in telephone density and had more than twice the teledensity of Sweden, New
Zealand, Switzerland, and Norway. The relatively good performance of the U.S. occurred despite competing
telephone networks not interconnecting.[25]
What turned out to be the most popular and longest lasting physical style of telephone was introduced in the
early 20th century, including Bell's model 102 telephone. A carbon granule transmitter and electromagnetic
receiver were united in a single molded plastic handle, which when not in use were placed in a cradle in the
base unit. The circuit diagram[26] of the model 102 shows the direct connection of the receiver to the line, while
the transmitter was induction coupled, with energy supplied by a local battery. The coupling transformer,
battery, and ringer were in a separate enclosure from the desk set. The rotary dial in the base interrupted the
line current by repeatedly but very briefly disconnecting the line 1 to 10 times for each digit, and the hook
switch (in the center of the circuit diagram) permanently disconnected the line and the transmitter battery while
the handset was on the cradle.
Starting in the 1930s, the base of the telephone also enclosed its bell and induction coil, obviating a separate
ringer box. Power was supplied to each subscriber line by central office batteries instead of the user's local
battery which required periodic service. For the next half century, the network behind the telephone grew
progressively larger and much more efficient, and after the rotary dial was added the instrument itself changed
little until Touch-Tone signaling started replacing the rotary dial in the 1960s.
The history of mobile phones can be traced back to two-way radios permanently installed in vehicles such as
taxicabs, police cruisers, railroad trains, and the like. Later versions such as the so-called transportables or
"bag phones" were equipped with a cigarette lighter plug so that they could also be carried, and thus could be
used as either mobile two-way radios or as portable phones by being patched into the telephone network.
In December 1947, Bell Labs engineers Douglas H. Ring and W. Rae Young proposed hexagonal cell
transmissions for mobile phones.[27] Philip T. Porter, also of Bell Labs, proposed that the cell towers be at the
corners of the hexagons rather than the centers and have directional antennas that would transmit/receive in 3
directions (see picture at right) into 3 adjacent hexagon cells.[28][29] The technology did not exist then and the
radio frequencies had not yet been allocated. Cellular technology was undeveloped until the 1960s, when
Richard H. Frenkiel and Joel S. Engel of Bell Labs developed the electronics.
On 3 April 1973 Motorola manager Martin Cooper placed a cellular phone call (in front of reporters) to Dr. Joel
S. Engel, head of research at AT&T's Bell Labs. This began the era of the handheld cellular mobile phone.
Meanwhile, the 1956 inauguration of the TAT-1 cable and later international direct dialing were important steps
in putting together the various continental telephone networks into a global network.
Cable television companies began to use their fast-developing cable networks, with ducting under the streets
of the United Kingdom, in the late 1980s, to provide telephony services in association with major telephone
companies. One of the early cable operators in the UK, Cable London, connected its first cable telephone
customer in about 1990.

Women's usage in the 20th century[edit]

Private conversation, 1910

The telephone was instrumental to modernization. It aided in the development of suburbs and the separation of
homes and businesses, but also became a reason for the separation between women occupying the private
sphere and men in the public sphere.[30] This would continue to isolate women and the home.
Women were regarded as the most frequent users of the telephone. It enabled women to work in the
telecommunications sector as receptionists and operators. Their autonomy was celebrated as women were
able to develop new relationships and nurture pre-existing ones in their private lives. Social relations are
essential in the access and usage of telephone networks.
Both historically and currently, women are predominantly responsible for the phone calls that bridge the public
and private sphere, such as calls regarding doctor’s appointments and meetings.[31] This emphasizes the
telephone’s impact on the social lives of women in the domestic sphere, reducing both isolation and insecurity.

21st century developments[edit]

See also: IP telephony

Internet Protocol (IP) telephony, also known as Internet telephony or Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), is
a disruptive technology that is rapidly gaining ground against traditional telephone network technologies. In
Japan and South Korea up to 10% of subscribers switched to this type of telephone service as of January
2005.
IP telephony uses a broadband Internet service to transmit conversations as data packets. In addition to
replacing the traditional plain old telephone service (POTS) systems, IP telephony also competes with mobile
phone networks by offering free or lower cost service via WiFi hotspots. VoIP is also used on private wireless
networks which may or may not have a connection to the outside telephone network.

Up to 1875[edit]

Innocenzo Manzetti
Antonio Meucci

Charles Bourseul

Johann Philipp Reis

Elisha Gray
Thomas Edison

Alexander Graham Bell

Thomas Augustus Watson

Tivadar Puskás
Emile Berliner

Charles Sumner Tainter

Theodore Newton Vail

 1667: Robert Hooke creates an acoustic string telephone that conveys sounds over a taut extended wire
by mechanical vibrations.[1][2]
 1844: Innocenzo Manzetti first suggests the idea of an electric "speaking telegraph", or telephone.
 1849: Antonio Meucci demonstrates a communicating device to individuals in Havana. It is disputed if this
is an electromagnetic telephone, but is said to involve direct transmission of electricity into the user's body.
 1854: Charles Bourseul publishes a description of a make-and-break telephone transmitter and receiver
in L'Illustration, (Paris) but does not construct a working instrument.
 1854: Meucci demonstrates an electric voice-operated device in New York, but it is not clear what kind of
device he demonstrated.
 1860: Johann Philipp Reis of Germany demonstrates a make-and-break transmitter after the design of
Bourseul and a knitting-needle receiver. Witnesses said they heard human voices being transmitted.
 1861: Johann Philipp Reis transfers voice electrically over a distance of 340 feet with his Reis telephone.
To prove that speech can be recognized successfully at the receiving end, he uses the phrase "The horse
does not eat cucumber salad" as an example because this phrase is hard to understand acoustically in
German.
 1864: In an attempt to give his musical automaton a voice, Innocenzo Manzetti invents the 'speaking
telegraph'. He shows no interest in patenting his device, but it is reported in newspapers.
 1865: Meucci reads of Manzetti's invention and writes to the editors of two newspapers claiming priority
and quoting his first experiment in 1849. He writes "I do not wish to deny Mr. Manzetti his invention, I only
wish to observe that two thoughts could be found to contain the same discovery, and that by uniting the
two ideas one can more easily reach the certainty about a thing this important." If he reads Meucci's offer
of collaboration, Manzetti does not respond.
 1871: Meucci files a patent caveat (a statement of intention to file a patent application)[3] for a Sound
Telegraph, but it does not describe an electromagnetic telephone.
 1872: Elisha Gray founds the Western Electric Manufacturing Company.
 1872: Professor Vanderwyde demonstrates Reis's telephone in New York.
 July 1873: Thomas Edison notes varying resistance in carbon grains due to pressure, and builds a rheostat
based on the principle but abandons it because of its sensitivity to vibration.
 May 1874: Gray invents an electromagnet device for transmitting musical tones. Some of his receivers use
a metallic diaphragm.
 July 1874: Alexander Graham Bell conceives the theoretical concept for the telephone while vacationing at
his parents' farm near Brantford, Canada. Alexander Melville Bell records notes of his son's conversation in
his personal journal.
 29 December 1874: Gray demonstrates his musical tones device and transmits "familiar melodies through
telegraph wire" at the Presbyterian Church in Highland Park, Illinois.
 4 May 1875: Bell conceives of using varying resistance in a wire conducting electric current to create a
varying current amplitude.[4]
 2 June 1875: Bell transmits the sound of a plucked steel reed using electromagnet instruments.
 1 July 1875: Bell uses a bi-directional "gallows" telephone that was able to transmit "indistinct but voice-like
sounds" but not clear speech. Both the transmitter and the receiver were identical membrane
electromagnet instruments.
 1875: Thomas Edison experiments with acoustic telegraphy and, in November, builds an electro-dynamic
receiver but does not exploit it.

1876 to 1878[edit]

 11 February 1876: Elisha Gray invents a liquid transmitter for use with a telephone, but he did not make
one.
 14 February 1876, about 9:30 am: Gray or his lawyer brings Gray's patent caveat for the telephone to
the Washington, D.C. Patent Office (a caveat was a notice of intention to file a patent application. It was
like a patent application, but without a request for examination, for the purpose of notifying the patent office
of a possible invention in process).
 14 February 1876, about 11:30 am: Bell's lawyer brings to the same patent office Bell's patent application
for the telephone. Bell's lawyer requests that it be registered immediately in the cash receipts blotter.
 14 February 1876, about 1:30 pm: Approximately two hours later Elisha Gray's patent caveat is registered
in the cash blotter. Although his caveat was not a full application, Gray could have converted it into a
patent application and contested Bell's priority, but did not do so because of advice from his lawyer and his
involvement with acoustic telegraphy. The result was that the patent was awarded to Bell.[5]
 7 March 1876: Bell's U.S. Patent, No. 174,465 for the telephone is granted.
 10 March 1876: Bell first successfully transmits speech, saying "Mr. Watson, come here! I want to see
you!" using a liquid transmitter as described in Gray's caveat, and Bell's own electromagnetic receiver.
 16 May 1876: Thomas Edison files first patent application for acoustic telegraphy for which U.S. patent
182,996 was granted October 10, 1876.
 25 June 1876: Bell exhibits his telephone at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, where it draws
enthusiastic reactions from Emperor Dom Pedro II of Brazil and Lord Kelvin, attracting the attention of the
press and resulting in the first announcements of the invention to the general public.
 10 August 1876: Alexander Graham Bell makes the world's first long-distance telephone call, over a
distance of about 6 miles, between Brantford and Paris, Ontario, Canada.
 1876: Hungarian Tivadar Puskas invents the telephone switchboard exchange (later working with Edison).
 9 October 1876: Bell makes the first two-way long-distance telephone call between Cambridge and
Boston, Massachusetts.
 October 1876: Edison tests his first carbon microphone.
 1877: The first experimental Telephone Exchange in Boston.
 20 January 1877: Edison "first [succeeds] in transmitting over wires many articulated sentences" using
carbon granules as a pressure-sensitive varying resistance under the pressure of a diaphragm.[6]
 30 January 1877: Bell's U.S. Patent No. 186,787 is granted for an electromagnetic telephone using
permanent magnets, iron diaphragms, and a call bell.
 4 March 1877: Emile Berliner invents a microphone based on "loose contact" between two metal
electrodes, an improvement on Reis' Telephone, and in April 1877 files a caveat of an invention in process.
 April 1877: A telephone line connects the workshop of Charles Williams, Jr., located in Boston, to his
house in Somerville, Massachusetts at 109 Court Street in Boston, where Alexander Graham
Bell and Thomas Watson had previously experimented with their telephone. The telephones became No. 1
and 2 in the Bell Telephone Company.[7]
 27 April 1877: Edison files telephone patent applications. U.S. patents (Nos. 474,230, 474,231 and
474,232) were awarded to Edison in 1892 over the competing claims of Alexander Graham Bell, Emile
Berliner, Elisha Gray, Amos Dolbear, J.W. McDonagh, G.B. Richmond, W.L.W. Voeker, J.H. Irwin
and Francis Blake Jr.[8] Edison's carbon granules transmitter and Bell's electromagnetic receiver are used,
with improvements, by the Bell system for many decades thereafter.[9]
 4 June 1877: Emile Berliner files telephone patent application that includes a carbon microphone
transmitter.
 9 July 1877: The Bell Telephone Company, a common law joint-stock company, is organized by Alexander
Graham Bell's future father-in-law Gardiner Greene Hubbard, a lawyer who becomes its first president.
 6 October 1877: the Scientific American publishes the invention from Bell - at that time still without a ringer.
 25 October 1877: the article in the Scientific American is discussed at the Telegraphenamt in Berlin
 12 November 1877: The first commercial telephone company enters telephone business in Friedrichsberg
close to Berlin[10] using the Siemens pipe as ringer and telephone devices build by Siemens.
 1 December 1877: Western Union enters the telephone business using Edison's superior carbon
microphone transmitter.
 28 January 1878: The first commercial North American telephone exchange is opened in New Haven,
Connecticut.
 4 February 1878: Edison demonstrates the telephone between Menlo Park, New Jersey and Philadelphia,
a distance of 210 kilometres (130 mi).
 14 June 1878: The Telephone Company (Bell's Patents) Ltd. is registered in London. Opened in London
on 21 August 1879, it is Europe's first telephone exchange, followed a couple of weeks later by one
in Manchester.[11]
 12 September 1878: the Bell Telephone Company sues Western Union for infringing Bell's patents.
 1878: The first Australian telephone trials were made between Semaphore and Kapunda (and
later Adelaide and Port Adelaide) in South Australia.[12]

1879 to 1919[edit]

 Early months of 1879: The Bell Telephone Company is near bankruptcy and desperate to get a transmitter
to equal Edison's carbon transmitter.
 17 February 1879: Bell Telephone merges with the New England Telephone Company to form the National
Bell Telephone Company. Theodore Vail takes over operations.
 1879: Francis Blake invents a carbon transmitter similar to Edison's that saves the Bell company from
extinction.
 2 August 1879: The Edison Telephone Company of London Ltd, registered. Opened in London 6
September 1879.
 10 September 1879: Connolly and McTighe patent a "dial" telephone exchange (limited in the number of
lines to the number of positions on the dial.).
 1879: The International Bell Telephone Company (IBTC) of Brussels, Belgium was founded by Bell
Telephone Company president Gardiner Greene Hubbard, initially to sell
 imported telephones and switchboards in Continental Europe.[13][14] International Bell rapidly evolved into an
important European telephone service provider and manufacturer, with major operations in several
countries.
 19 February 1880: The photophone, also called a radiophone, is invented jointly by Alexander Graham Bell
and Charles Sumner Tainterat Bell's Volta Laboratory.[15][16] The device allowed for
the transmission of sound on a beam of light.
 20 March 1880: National Bell Telephone merges with others to form the American Bell Telephone
Company.
 1 April 1880: world's first wireless telephone call on Bell and Tainter's photophone (distant precursor
to fiber-optic communications) from the Franklin School in Washington, D.C. to the window of Bell's
laboratory, 213 meters away.[17][18]
 1 July 1881: The world's first international telephone call is made between St. Stephen, New Brunswick,
Canada, and Calais, Maine, United States.[19]
 11 October 1881: The Sydney telephone exchange opened with 12 subscribers.
 1882: A telephone company—an American Bell Telephone Company affiliate—is set up in Mexico City.
 14 May 1883: The Adelaide exchange was opened, with 48 subscribers.[12]
 7 September 1883: The Port Adelaide exchange was opened, with 21 subscribers.[12]
 4 September 1884: Opening of telephone service between New York and Boston (235 miles).[20]
 3 March 1885: The American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) is incorporated as the long-
distance division of American Bell Telephone Company. It will become the head of the Bell System on the
last day of 1899.
 1886: Gilliland's Automatic circuit changer is put into service between Worcester and Leicester featuring
the first operator dialing allowing one operator to run two exchanges.
 1887: Tivadar Puskás introduced the multiplex switchboard, that had an epochal significance in the further
development of telephone exchange.[21]
 13 January 1887: the Government of the United States moves to annul the master patent issued
to Alexander Graham Bell on the grounds of fraud and misrepresentation. The case, known as the
'Government Case', is later dropped after it was revealed that the U.S. Attorney General, Augustus Hill
Garland had been given millions of dollars of stock in the company trying to unseat Bell's telephone patent.
 1888: Telephone patent court cases are confirmed by the Supreme Court, see The Telephone Cases
 1889: AT&T becomes the overall holding company for all the Bell companies.
 2 November 1889: A.G. Smith patents a telegraph switch which provides for trunks between groups of
selectors allowing for the first time, fewer trunks than there are lines, and automatic selection of an idle
trunk.
 10 March 1891: Almon Strowger patents the Strowger switch the first Automatic telephone exchange.
 30 October 1891: The independent Strowger Automatic Telephone Exchange Company is formed.
 3 May 1892: Thomas Edison awarded patents for the carbon microphone based on applications lodged in
1877.
 18 October 1892: Opening of telephone service between New York and Chicago (950 miles).[20]
 3 November 1892: The first Strowger switch goes into operation in LaPorte, Indiana with 75 subscribers
and capacity for 99.
 30 January 1894: The second fundamental Bell patent for the telephone expire; Independent telephone
companies established, and independent manufacturing companies (Stromberg-Carlson in 1894
and Kellogg Switchboard & Supply Company in 1897).
 30 December 1899: American Bell Telephone Company is purchased by its own long-distance
subsidiary, American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) to bypass state regulations limiting capitalization.
AT&T assumes leadership role of the Bell System.
 25 December 1900: John W. Atkins, the manager at International Ocean Telegraph Company (IOTC), a
subsidiary of Western Union Telegraph Company made the first international telephone call over telegraph
cable at 09:55am from his office in Key West to Havana, Cuba.[22] Atkins was reported in the Florida Times
Union and Citizen as saying, "For a long time there was no sound, except the roar heard at night
sometimes, caused by electric light current." He continued calling Cuba and finally came back the words,
clear and distinct: "I don't understand you."[23]
 27 February 1901: United States Court of Appeal declares void Emile Berliner's patent for a telephone
transmitter used by the Bell telephone system
 1902: The first Australian interstate calls between Mt Gambier and Nelson.[12]
 26 February 1914: Boston-Washington underground cable commenced commercial service.[20]
 16 January 1915: The first automatic Panel exchange was installed at the Mulberry Central Office
in Newark, New Jersey; but was a semi-automatic system using non-dial telephones.
 25 January 1915: First transcontinental telephone call (3600 miles), with Thomas Augustus Watson at 333
Grant Avenue in San Francisco receiving a call from Alexander Graham Bell at 15 Dey Street in New York
City, facilitated by a newly invented vacuum tube amplifier.[24]
 21 October 1915: First transmission of speech across the Atlantic Ocean by radiotelephone from Arlington,
Va. to Paris, France.[20]
 1919: The first rotary dial telephones in the Bell System installed in Norfolk, Virginia. Telephones that
lacked dials and touch-tone pads were no longer made by the Bell System after 1978.[citation needed]
 1919: AT&T conducts more than 4,000 measurements of people's heads to gauge the best dimensions of
standard headsets so that callers' lips would be near the microphone when holding handsets up to their
ears.[25]

1920 to 1969[edit]

 16 July 1920: World's first radiotelephone service commences public service between Los Angeles, Calif.
and Santa Catalina Island.[20]
 11 April 1921: Opening of deep sea cable from Key West, Fla., to Havana, Cuba (115 miles).[20]
 22 December 1923: Opening of second transcontinental telephone line via a southern route.[20]
 7 March 1926: First transatlantic telephone call, from London to New York.[26]
 7 January 1927: Transatlantic telephone service inaugurated for commercial service (3500 miles).[20]
 17 January 1927: Opening of third transcontinental telephone line via a northern route.[20]
 7 April 1927: world's first videophone call via an electro-mechanical AT&T unit, from Washington, D.C. to
New York City, by then-Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover.[27][28]
 8 December 1929: Opening of commercial ship-to-shore telephone service.[20]
 3 April 1930: Opening of transoceanic telephone service to Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay and
subsequently to all other South American countries.[20]
 25 April 1935: First telephone call around the world by wire and radio.[20]
 1937: The Western Electric type 302 telephone becomes available for service in the United States.
 8 December 1937: Opening of fourth transcontinental telephone line.[20]
 1941: Multi-frequency dialing introduced for operators in Baltimore, Maryland
 1942: Telephone production is halted at Western Electric until 1945 for civilian distribution due to the
retooling of factories for military equipment during WWII.
 1946: National Numbering Plan (area codes)
 1946: first commercial mobile phone call
 1946: Bell Labs develops the germanium point-contact transistor
 1947: December, W. Rae Young and Douglas H. Ring, Bell Labs engineers, proposed hexagonal cells for
provisioning of mobile telephone service.
 1948: Phil Porter, a Bell Labs engineer, proposed that cell towers be at the corners of the hexagons rather
than the centers and have directional antennas pointing in 3 directions.
 1950: The Western Electric Type 500 telephone becomes available in the United States after
announcement in 1949.
 30 June 1948: First public demonstration of the transistor by Bell Telephone Laboratories.[20]
 10 November 1951: Direct Distance Dialing (DDD) first offered on trial basis at Englewood, New Jersey, to
11 selected major cities across the United States; this service grew rapidly across major cities during the
1950s
 1955: the laying of trans-Atlantic cable TAT-1 began - 36 circuits, later increased to 48 by reducing the
bandwidth from 4 kHz to 3 kHz
 1958: Modems used for direct connection via voice phone lines
 1960: Bell Labs conducts extensive field trial of an electronic central office in Morris, Illinois, known at
the Morris System.
 1960's: Bell Labs developed the electronics for cellular phones
 1961: Initiation of Touch-Tone service trials
 1962: T-1 service in Skokie, Illinois
 1963, November 18: AT&T commences the first subscriber Touch-Tone service in the towns
of Carnegie and Greensburg, Pennsylvania, using push-button telephones that replaced rotary
dial instruments.
 1965 (May 31): The world's first electronic switching system commences commercial service
in Succasunna, New Jersey in form of the 1ESS.
 1965: first geosynchronous communications satellite - 240 circuits or one TV signal

1970 to 1999[edit]

 1970: ESS-2 electronic switch.

 1970: modular telephone cords and jacks introduced .
 1970: Amos E. Joel, Jr. of Bell Labs invented the "call handoff" system for "cellular mobile communication
system" (patent granted 1972).
 1971: AT&T submitted a proposal for cellular phone service to the U.S. Federal Communications
Commission (FCC).
 3 April 1973: Motorola employee Martin Cooper placed the first hand-held cell phone call to Joel Engel,
head of research at AT&T's Bell Labs, while talking on the first Motorola DynaTAC prototype.
 1973: packet switched voice connections over ARPANET with Network Voice Protocol (NVP).
 1976: Kazuo Hashimoto invented Caller ID
 1978: Bell Labs launched a trial of the first commercial cellular network in Chicago using Advanced Mobile
Phone System (AMPS).
 1978: World's first NMT phone call in Tampere, Finland.[29]
 1979: VoIP - NVP running on top of early versions of IP
 1981: The world's first fully automatic mobile phone system NMT is started in Sweden and Norway.
 1981: BT introduces the British Telephone Sockets system.
 1982: FCC approved AT&T proposal for AMPS and allocated frequencies in the 824-894 MHz band.
 1982: Caller ID patented by Carolyn Doughty, Bell Labs
 1983: last manual telephone switchboard in Maine is retired
 1984: AT&T completes the divestiture of its local operating companies. This forms a new AT&T (long
distance service and equipment sales) and the Baby Bells.
 1987: ADSL introduced
 1988: First transatlantic fiber optic cable TAT-8, carrying 40,000 circuits
 1990: analog AMPS was superseded by Digital AMPS.
 1991: the GSM mobile phone network is started in Finland, with the first phone call in Tampere.[29]
 1993: Telecom Relay Service available for the disabled
 1994: The IBM Simon becomes the first smartphone on the market.
 1995: Caller ID implemented nationally in USA
 1999: creation of the Asterisk Private branch exchange

2000 to present[edit]

 11 June 2002: Antonio Meucci is recognized for "...his work in the invention of the telephone" (but not "...for
inventing the telephone") by the United States House of Representatives, in United States HRes. 269.[30]
 21 June 2002: The Parliament of Canada responds by passing a motion unanimously 10 days
later recognizing Alexander Graham Bell as the inventor of the telephone.[31][32]
 2005: Mink, Louisiana finally receives traditional landline telephone service (one of the last in the United
States).[33]