History of the Phone

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14 Jan 2024

When Was the Telephone Invented?

What is a Telephone?

A telephone is a device that allows two people at a distance to communicate. The word telephone originates from Ancient Greek. It is formed from the combination of the words Telos “Far” and Phone “Sound”. It came to Turkish from the French word telephone.
The basic elements of a classic telephone are the microphone (transmitter) and the headset (receiver). To enable speech, the microphone is placed towards the bottom of the device, and the headphone or speaker part is placed at the top of the device. Another element of the phone is the keypad. The keypad allows entering the phone number of the person to be called by pressing or dialing the keys.
A conventional telephone works by having the transmitter convert sound waves into electrical signals that are sent to the receiving telephone through a telephone network. It then converts the signals into audible sound in the receiver or sometimes in a speaker. This is how communication is established. Phones are bidirectional devices and allow transmission in both directions simultaneously.

When Was the Telephone First Used?

When we look at the history of the phone, we see that it has gone through many stages. Contrary to popular belief, the idea of the telephone was first put forward by the English scientist Robert Hooke in 1667, and Robert Hooke made the first acoustic wire telephone. Later, different prototypes were produced by many people, but these attempts were not successful.
In particular, there are still debates about who first invented the telephone, and these debates specifically concern the patent for the telephone. Some sources claim that Antonio Meucci or Elisha Gray should have received it instead of Alexander Graham Bell.
As a result, Alexander Graham Bell is today considered the inventor of the telephone in the scientific world, as he was the first person to patent the telephone in 1876. Alexander Graham Bell's two-way conversation with his assistant Thomas Watson on March 10, 1876 is considered the first telephone conversation in human history.

Who is Alexander Graham Bell?

When we examine the history of the telephone, we see that Alexander Graham Bell is one of the most important names in the history of the telephone. The reason for this is that he is known as the inventor of the telephone. He also made history by making the first telephone conversation in human history with Thomas Watson on March 10, 1876. If we take a closer look at Alexander Graham Bell's life;

Alexander Graham Bell was born on March 3, 1847 in Edinburgh, Scotland.
He graduated from high school at the age of 14. Later, he studied music for a while. His father was developing an “alphabet for the hearing impaired” and he started working with his father.
He studied Anatomy and Physiology at University College London.
In 1872 he met Thomas Watson, a master mechanic. Then, between 1873 and 1876, they started working on a different telegraph device and telephone with Watson's help.
On May 2, 1875, he managed to transmit a note with a simple telephone setup. He continued his work for another six months and developed the prototype of the first accepted phone.
Bell patented the telephone on March 7, 1876. He made history by making the first telephone call in human history to Thomas Watson on March 10, 1876. In this way, a turning point in the history of the telephone occurred.
Alexander Graham Bell founded the Bell Telephone Company, which he named after himself. Obtained operation of the first commercial telephone exchange in the State of Connecticut.
He received the Volta Prize in France in 1880. With the money he received from the award, Bell established laboratories and developed the gramophone there. He also contributed to the production of devices such as audiometers and photophones.
He led the opening of the world's first long-distance telephone line in 1915, connecting New York to San Francisco.
Bell, the most important name in the history of the telephone and the inventor of the telephone, died in 1922.

Chronology of the Phone

If we examine the history of the phone chronologically;

1667 : Robert Hooke created an acoustic wire telephone that allowed sounds to be transmitted over a taut wire by mechanical vibrations.
1844 : Innocenzo Manzetti first came up with the idea of a "talking telegraph" or telephone powered by electricity.
1849 : Antonio Meucci demonstrated an electromagnetically powered telephone to people in Havana. But it was shelved because it conducted electricity to users' bodies.
1854 : Charles Bourseul wrote and published a theoretically working telephone transmitter and receiver in L'Illustration (in Paris). This remained only theoretical and a working prototype was never produced.
1872 : Elisha Gray founded the Western Electric Manufacturing company.
May 1874 : Gray invented an electromagnet device for transmitting musical tones. Some buyers of this invention used a metallic diaphragm.
December 29, 1874: Gray opened his musical intonation device to the public, enabling the transmission of melodies via telegraph wire at the Presbyterian Church in Highland Park, Illinois.
May 4, 1875: Bell created a variable current amplitude by using a variable resistor in a wire that conducts electric current.
July 1, 1875: Bell used a two-way “gallows” telephone that could transmit “vague but voice-like sounds” but not clear speech.
1875 : Thomas Edison worked on acoustic telegraphy and built an electro-dynamic receiver in November.
February 11, 1876 : Elisha Gray invented a liquid transmitter for telephone use but did not produce it.
February 14, 1876 : This date is one of the most important days in the history of the telephone. First, Gray or his lawyer (the exact date is unknown) applied for a patent for the telephone with the Washington DC Patent Office, but they did not pay the required payment for the patent application. About 4 hours later, Bell's lawyer applies for a patent for the phone at the same patent office and makes the necessary payment. He then specifically requests that it be recorded in the receipt book. About two hours later, Elisha comes to pay for Gray's patent and is rejected. Because Gray was the first to initiate patent proceedings, he had a legal right to object. But he did not object on the grounds that he was doing further work on acoustic telegraphy, and as a result, the patent was granted to Bell.
March 7, 1876: U.S. Patent for Bell's telephone was issued.
March 10, 1876: Bell first said, “Mr. Watson, come here! I want to see you!" he said and made his speech successfully. Thus, the first two-way telephone conversation took place, one of the greatest events in the history of the telephone.
August 10, 1876: Alexander Graham Bell; He made the world's first one-way, non-reciprocal long-distance telephone call between Brantford and Paris, Ontario, Canada, approximately 6 miles apart.
1876 : Hungarian Tivadar Puskas invented the telephone switchboard
October 9, 1876: Bell made the first two-way long-distance telephone call between Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts.
October 1876 : Edison tested the carbon microphone for the first time.
November 1877: Bell established the first permanent telephone connection between two businesses in Manchester, using imported instruments.
September 10, 1879: Connolly and McTighe patented a “dial-up” telephone switchboard.
February 19, 1880: The photophone, also called the radiophone, was jointly invented by Alexander Graham Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter, and this device allowed the transmission of sound on a beam of light.
April 1, 1880: The world's first wireless telephone call was made with Bell and Tainter's photophone (the distant precursor of fiber optic communications) from the Franklin School in Washington, DC, to the window of Bell's laboratory, 213 meters away.
July 1, 1881: The world's first international telephone call was made in St. Stephen (New Brunswick, Canada), and Calais (Maine, United States).
1886 : Gilliland's automatic switchgear entered service between Worcester and Leicester, with the first operator paging feature allowing one operator to operate two switchboards.
1887 : Tivadar Puskás introduced the multiplex power plant.
March 10, 1891: The Strowger switch is the first commercially successful electromechanical stepping switch telephone switchboard system. It was developed by the Strowger Automatic Telephone Switchboard Company, founded in 1891 by Almon Brown Strowger.
May 3, 1892: Thomas Edison applied for a patent for the carbon microphone, based on applications filed in 1877.
February 26, 1914: Boston-Washington underground cable begins commercial service.
January 25, 1915: The first transcontinental telephone call (3600 miles) was made between San Francisco and New York. Thomas Augustus Watson secured a meeting with Alexander Graham Bell at 15 Street in New York, facilitated by a newly invented vacuum tube amplifier.
April 7, 1927: The world's first video telephone call was made from Washington, D.C. to New York City via an electro-mechanical AT&T unit by then-US Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover.
1946: Bell Labs developed the germanium point-contact transistor
1947: W. Rae Young and Douglas H. Ring, engineers at Bell Labs, came up with the idea of a hexagonal cell model to provide mobile phone service.
1948 : Phil Porter, an engineer at the Bell Labs laboratory, came up with the idea of base stations being at the corners of hexagons instead of the centers and directional antennas facing 3 directions.
1959: Mohamed M. Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell Laboratories invented the metal oxide-semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET or MOS transistor), which subsequently led to the rapid development and widespread adoption of pulse code modulation (PCM) digital telephony opened.
1961 : Key service trials were started.
1970 : Amos E. Joel, Jr. from Bell Laboratories. He invented the “call transfer” system for the “cellular mobile communications system.” Its patent was obtained in 1972.
1970 : British companies Pye TMC, Marconi-Elliott and GEC developed the digital push-button telephone based on metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) integrated circuit (IC) technology.
1971 : AT&T submits a proposal for cell phone service to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
April 3, 1973 : Motorola employee Martin Cooper had his first cell phone call with Joel Engel, head of research at AT&T's Bell Laboratories.
1975 : Paul R. Gray and J. McCreary developed the analog-to-digital converter (ADC) MOS chip used in digital telephony.
1976 : Kazuo Hashimoto invented Caller ID.
1978 : Bell Labs conducted the first commercial cellular network experiments using the Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS) in Chicago.
1979 : VoIP – NVP begins work on early versions of IP.
1981 : The world's first fully automatic mobile phone system, NMT, was launched in Sweden and Norway.
1987 : ADSL was introduced.
1988 : The first transatlantic fiber optic cable, TAT-8, carrying 40,000 circuits, was launched.
1990 : Analog AMPS was replaced by Digital AMPS.
1994: IBM Simon became the first smartphone on the market.

21st Century Developments… VoIP Technology

When we come to the end of the history of the phone, we can say that the last point is VoIP... VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is the sending of audio, video or messages over IP. IP address stands for Internet Protocol address, and IP address is an address that allows all devices to communicate with each other on the internet.
If you have an internet connection, you can communicate with anyone with VoIP without needing traditional phone service. Another feature of VoIP is the ability to handle outgoing and incoming calls over existing phone networks. Moreover, VoIP offers low-cost communication solutions today and with VoIP you do not need to pay additional fees for long distance or international calls. The only fee you will pay is for your internet access. For this reason, it is the most preferred communication method in the telecommunications industry today.
Additionally, when you make a phone call using VoIP , the business phone number app or VoIP adapter receives the analog voice signal and converts it into a digital signal. This digital voice data is then sent to the business phone service provider using your internet and finally the message is transmitted to the other party's phone.

Summary

If we summarize the history of the phone;
The biggest and most important event in the history of the telephone is the telephone conversation between Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant Thomas Watson on March 10, 1876. This call is considered the first telephone call in human history. Although there are still many debates, the owner of the patent for the telephone is Alexander Graham Bell. In this way, Bell is remembered as one of the first business people who created the communications industry.
As you know, with the development of the telephone today, we not only communicate through voice calls, but also use other communication channels. In addition, we can communicate using an internet connection, and this technology in which we communicate with our phones via the internet is called VoIP. With VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) you can send audio, video or messages via IP address. At the same time, if you and the person you want to communicate with have any smart device with an internet connection, you can communicate via VoIP.

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