Portal:Telephones

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The Telephones Portal

A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into electronic signals that are transmitted via cables and other communication channels to another telephone which reproduces the sound to the receiving user. The term is derived from Greek: τῆλε (tēle, far) and φωνή (phōnē, voice), together meaning distant voice. A common short form of the term is phone, which came into use early in the telephone's history.

In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was the first to be granted a United States patent for a device that produced clearly intelligible replication of the human voice at a second device. This instrument was further developed by many others, and became rapidly indispensable in business, government, and in households. (Full article...)

A mobile phone (or cellphone) is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while the user is moving within a telephone service area, as opposed to a fixed-location phone (landline phone). The radio frequency link establishes a connection to the switching systems of a mobile phone operator, which provides access to the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Modern mobile telephone services use a cellular network architecture, and therefore mobile telephones are called cellphones (or "cell phones") in North America. In addition to telephony, digital mobile phones support a variety of other services, such as text messaging, multimedia messaging, email, Internet access (via LTE, 5G NR or Wi-Fi), short-range wireless communications (infrared, Bluetooth), satellite access (navigation, messaging connectivity), business applications, payments (via NFC), multimedia playback and streaming (radio, television), digital photography, and video games. Mobile phones offering only basic capabilities are known as feature phones (slang: "dumbphones"); mobile phones that offer greatly advanced computing capabilities are referred to as smartphones. (Full article...)

A smartphone (often simply called a phone) is a mobile device that combines the functionality of a traditional mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing, email, and social media, as well as multimedia playback and streaming. Smartphones have built-in cameras, GPS navigation, and support for various communication methods, including voice calls, text messaging, and internet-based messaging apps. (Full article...)

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The Bell System was a system of telecommunication companies, led by the Bell Telephone Company and later by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), that dominated the telephone services industry in North America for over 100 years from its creation in 1877 until its antitrust breakup in 1983. The system of companies was often colloquially called Ma Bell (as in "Mother Bell"), as it held a vertical monopoly over telecommunication products and services in most areas of the United States and Canada. At the time of the breakup of the Bell System in the early 1980s, it had assets of $150 billion (equivalent to $440 billion in 2023) and employed over one million people.

Beginning in the 1910s, American antitrust regulators had been observing and accusing the Bell System of abusing its monopoly power, and had brought legal action multiple times over the decades. In 1974 the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice brought a lawsuit against Bell claiming violations of the Sherman Act. In 1982, anticipating that it could not win, AT&T agreed to a Justice Department-mandated consent decree that settled the lawsuit and ordered it to break itself up into seven "Regional Bell Operating Companies" (known as "The Baby Bells"). This ended the existence of the conglomerate in 1984. The Baby Bells became independent companies and several of them are large corporations today. (Full article...)

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A mobile phone (or cellphone) is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while the user is moving within a telephone service area, as opposed to a fixed-location phone (landline phone). The radio frequency link establishes a connection to the switching systems of a mobile phone operator, which provides access to the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Modern mobile telephone services use a cellular network architecture, and therefore mobile telephones are called cellphones (or "cell phones") in North America. In addition to telephony, digital mobile phones support a variety of other services, such as text messaging, multimedia messaging, email, Internet access (via LTE, 5G NR or Wi-Fi), short-range wireless communications (infrared, Bluetooth), satellite access (navigation, messaging connectivity), business applications, payments (via NFC), multimedia playback and streaming (radio, television), digital photography, and video games. Mobile phones offering only basic capabilities are known as feature phones (slang: "dumbphones"); mobile phones that offer greatly advanced computing capabilities are referred to as smartphones.

The first handheld mobile phone was demonstrated by Martin Cooper of Motorola in New York City on 3 April 1973, using a handset weighing c. 2 kilograms (4.4 lbs). In 1979, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) launched the world's first cellular network in Japan. In 1983, the DynaTAC 8000x was the first commercially available handheld mobile phone. From 1983 to 2014, worldwide mobile phone subscriptions grew to over seven billion; enough to provide one for every person on Earth. In the first quarter of 2016, the top smartphone developers worldwide were Samsung, Apple and Huawei; smartphone sales represented 78 percent of total mobile phone sales. For feature phones , the top-selling brands were Samsung, Nokia and Alcatel.

Mobile phones are considered an important human invention as they have been one of the most widely used and sold pieces of consumer technology. The growth in popularity has been rapid in some places, for example, in the UK, the total number of mobile phones overtook the number of houses in 1999. Today, mobile phones are globally ubiquitous, and in almost half the world's countries, over 90% of the population owns at least one. (Full article...)

List of phone types
Payphone Courtesy telephone Emergency telephone Secure telephone Smartphone Satellite phone Phablet Car phone Windows Phone Camera phone Feature phone VoIP phone iPhone Tin can telephone Sound-powered telephone Grillo telephone Golden telephone Reis telephone Cordless telephone Shoe phone Field telephone IBM Simon Mobile radio telephone Foldable smartphone Modular smartphone Prepaid mobile phone

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Example of a North American dial tone

Listen to a dial tone from North America of 350 Hz + 440 Hz.

Example of a UK/British dial tone

Listen to a dial tone from the United Kingdom of 350 Hz + 450 Hz.

Example of a current European dial tone

Listen to a European dial tone of 425 Hz

Example of a French dial tone

Listen to a French dial tone of 440 Hz

Example of a Japanese dial tone

Listen to a Japanese dial tone of 400 Hz

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A dial tone (dialling tone in the UK) is a telephony signal sent by a telephone exchange or private branch exchange (PBX) to a terminating device, such as a telephone, when an off-hook condition is detected. It indicates that the exchange is working and is ready to initiate a telephone call. The tone stops when the first dialed digit is recognized. If no digits are forthcoming, the partial dial procedure is invoked, often eliciting a special information tone and an intercept message, followed by the off-hook tone, requiring the caller to hang up and redial. (Full article...)

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The following are images from various telephone-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Typical mobile phone mini-SIM card (from Mobile phone)
Image 2Elisha Gray, 1876, designed a telephone using a water microphone in Highland Park, Illinois. (from History of the telephone)
Image 3Two decades of evolution of mobile phones, from a 1992 Motorola 8900X-2 to the 2014 iPhone 6 Plus (from Mobile phone)
Image 4Mobile payment system. (from Smartphone)
Image 5E-waste in Agbogbloshie (from Smartphone)
Image 6The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. In 1983, it became the first commercially available handheld cellular mobile phone. (from Mobile phone)
Image 7Optical track pad sensor of an HTC Legend, 2010. (from Smartphone)
Image 8Active mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants (from Mobile phone)
Image 91896 Telephone (Sweden) (from History of the telephone)
Image 10Private conversation, 1910 (from History of the telephone)
Image 11Mobile payment system (from Mobile phone)
Image 121917 wall telephone, open to show magneto and local battery (from History of the telephone)
Image 13Actor portraying Alexander Graham Bell in a 1932 silent film. Shows Bell's second telephone transmitter (microphone), invented 1876 and first displayed at the Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia. (from History of the telephone)
Image 14Cellular networks work by only reusing radio frequencies (in this example frequencies f1-f4) in non adjacent cells to avoid interference (from Mobile phone)
Image 15A driver using two handheld mobile phones at once (from Mobile phone)
Image 16Dupuis and Haug during a GSM meeting in Belgium, April 1992 (from Mobile phone)
Image 17
Bell prototype telephone stamp
Centennial Issue of 1976
(from History of the telephone)
Image 18A smartphone touchscreen (from Smartphone)
Image 19Inserted memory and SIM cards (from Smartphone)
Image 20A New York City driver holding two phones (from Smartphone)
Image 21Mobile phone subscribers per 100 inhabitants. 2014 figure is estimated. (from Mobile phone)
Image 22A smartphone displaying the homepage of the English Wikipedia (from Smartphone)
Image 23A high-capacity portable battery charger (power bank) (from Smartphone)
Image 24Top of cellular telephone tower (from History of the telephone)
Image 25A Moto G7 Power; its display uses a tall aspect ratio and includes a "notch". (from Smartphone)
Image 26The Nokia 9110 Communicator, opened for access to keyboard (from Smartphone)
Image 27Tooltip in Kiwi Browser, a Google Chromium derivative, reveals the full URL by hovering over the tab list using the stylus on a Samsung Galaxy Note 4. (from Smartphone)
Image 28Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 29A Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus, featuring a "hole-punch" camera (from Smartphone)
Image 30The LG Prada with a large capacitive touchscreen introduced in 2006 (from Smartphone)
Image 31A user consulting a mapping app on a phone (from Smartphone)
Image 32The back of a Nokia 9 PureView. It features a five-lens camera array with Zeiss optics, using a mixture of color and monochrome sensors. (from Smartphone)
Image 33A French Gower telephone of 1912 at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris (from History of the telephone)
Image 34The original Apple iPhone; following its introduction the common smartphone form factor shifted to large touchscreen software interfaces without physical keypads (from Smartphone)
Image 35Antonio Meucci, 1854, constructed telephone-like devices. (from History of the telephone)
Image 36IBM Simon and charging base (1994) (from Smartphone)
Image 37A text message (SMS) (from Mobile phone)
Image 38Personal Handy-phone System mobiles and modems, 1997–2003 (from Mobile phone)
Image 39Antonio Meucci's telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 40Thomas Edison invented the carbon microphone which produced a strong telephone signal. (from History of the telephone)
Image 41Old Receiver schematic, c.1906 (from History of the telephone)
Image 42The HTC Desire, a 2010 smartphone with optical trackpad and search button (from Smartphone)
Image 43Mobile/desktop convergence: the Librem 5 smartphone can be used as a basic desktop computer (from Smartphone)
Image 44People using phones while walking (from Mobile phone)
Image 45Philipp Reis, 1861, constructed the first telephone, today called the Reis telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 46A 19th century acoustic tin can or "lovers' telephone" (from History of the telephone)
Image 47Several BlackBerry smartphones, which were highly popular in the mid-late 2000s (from Smartphone)
Image 48Historical marker commemorating the first telephone central office in New York State (1878) (from History of the telephone)
Image 49The master telephone patent granted to Bell, 174465, March 10, 1876 (from History of the telephone)
Image 50Apple iPhone smartphone (from History of the telephone)
Image 51Smartphone with infrared transmitter on top for use as remote control (from Smartphone)
Image 52A Meizu MX4 with Flyme OS (from Smartphone)
Image 53"Device options" menu of Samsung Mobile's TouchWiz user interface as of 2013, accessed by holding the power button for a second (from Smartphone)
Image 54A sign along Bellaire Boulevard in Southside Place, Texas (Greater Houston) states that using mobile phones while driving is prohibited from 7:30 am to 9:00 am and from 2:00 pm to 4:15 pm. (from Smartphone)
Image 55The back of a Huawei P30. It features three rear-facing camera lenses with Leica optics. (from Smartphone)
Image 56Scrapped mobile phones (from Mobile phone)
Image 57Martin Cooper of Motorola, shown here in a 2007 reenactment, made the first publicized handheld mobile phone call on a prototype DynaTAC model on 3 April 1973. (from Mobile phone)
Image 58This layout of the camera viewfinder was first introduced by Apple with iOS 7 in 2013. Towards the late 2010s, several other smartphone vendors have ditched their layouts and implemented variations of this layout. (from Smartphone)
Image 59Android smartphones (from Mobile phone)
Image 60Tivadar Puskás proposed the telephone switchboard exchange in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 61A sign in the US restricting cell phone use to certain times of day (no cell phone use between 7:30–9:00 am and 2:00–4:15 pm) (from Mobile phone)
Image 62A German rotary dial telephone, the W48 (from History of the telephone)

Selected biography

Meucci in 1878

Antonio Santi Giuseppe Meucci (/meɪˈuːtʃi/ may-OO-chee, Italian: [anˈtɔːnjo meˈuttʃi]; 13 April 1808 – 18 October 1889) was an Italian inventor and an associate of Giuseppe Garibaldi, a major political figure in the history of Italy. Meucci is best known for developing a voice-communication apparatus that several sources credit as the first telephone.

Meucci set up a form of voice-communication link in his Staten Island, New York, home that connected the second-floor bedroom to his laboratory. He submitted a patent caveat for his telephonic device to the U.S. Patent Office in 1871, but there was no mention of electromagnetic transmission of vocal sound in his caveat. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was granted a patent for the electromagnetic transmission of vocal sound by undulatory electric current. Despite the longstanding general crediting of Bell with the accomplishment, the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities supported celebrations of Meucci's 200th birthday in 2008 using the title "Inventore del telefono" (Inventor of the telephone). The U.S. House of Representatives in a resolution in 2002 also acknowledged Meucci's work in the invention of the telephone, although the U.S. Senate did not join the resolution and the interpretation of the resolution is disputed. (Full article...)

List of selected biographies
Alexander Graham Bell Thomas Edison Innocenzo Manzetti Charles Bourseul Johann Philipp Reis Tivadar Puskás Douglas H. Ring W. Rae Young Martin Cooper (inventor) Thomas Cowherd Gardiner Greene Hubbard Anthony Pollok Thomas A. Watson Elisha Gray George Sweigert Pat Fleet John Draper

Selected images

Image 1Public telephone, Bucharest, Romania
Image 2Foldable smartphones
Image 3Track-side emergency brake and emergency telephones at the platform of the metro station Aspern Nord, Donaustadt, Vienna, Austria
Image 4Mailbox and public telephone in Haßfurt, Germany
Image 5Landline call blocking in use
Image 6A Funke + Huster telephone inside the Idrija Mine, Slovenia
Image 7Acoustic telephone ad, The Consolidated Telephone Co., Jersey City, New Jersey, 1886
Image 8Apple iPhones
Image 9Historical telephone with the German imperial eagle and the heraldic shield of the House of Hohenzollern dynasty; Vollmer's Mill, Seebach, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
Image 10An example of a K6, the most common red telephone box model, photographed in London in 2012
Image 11A police box outside Earl's Court tube station in London, built in 1996 and based on the 1929 Gilbert Mackenzie Trench design
Image 12Rotary dial telephone, probably from Belgium; the circuit diagram inside is in Dutch and French
Image 13Rotary dial telephone, probably from Belgium; the circuit diagram inside is in Dutch and French
Image 14Wooden wall telephone with a hand-cranked magneto generator
Image 15Push-button telephone
Image 16Automatic electric Rotary dial telephone
Image 17A Bell Canada payphone with digital display
Image 18Photograph of the interior of the Prairie Grove Airlight Outdoor Telephone Booth in Prairie Grove, Arkansas, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places
Image 19Emergency telephones, on the Paris-Bordeaux railway line, Saint-Saviol station, Vienne, France
Image 20A traditional North American rotary phone dial. The associative lettering was originally used for dialing named exchanges but was kept because it facilitated memorization of telephone numbers.
Image 21A cordless phone
Image 22Android smartphones
Image 23An Italian gettone telefonico (telephone token) from 1945, which was used in Italian phone booths
Image 24A Northern Electric telephone, model number N415H, circa 1950 (probably)
Image 25Telephone booth box art outside the Tower of London, 2012
Image 26A historic telephone booth in Skansen, Stockholm
Image 27A Western Electric candlestick phone from the 1920s
Image 28The AUTOVON was a worldwide American military telephone system that was built starting in 1963.

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v t e Telephony
Types	Landline Cable telephony Mobile phone Satellite phone Photophone
Accessories	Answering machine Caller ID
Connectivity	Cable protection system Communications satellites Fibre-optical Free-space optical ISDN Mobile phone signal POTS PSTN Submarine cables VoIP
Calls	Missed call Misdialed call Nuisance call Phone tag
Applications	Fax transmission Telephone calls Telephone newspapers Théâtrophone Video calls
Telecommunication portal Telephones portal

v t e Emergency telephone numbers
Emergency telephone Harmonised service of social value
000 (Australia) 102 (India) 106 (Australia) 108 (India) 110 (Iran, Japan, China) 111 (New Zealand) 112 (Europe and others, worldwide GSM mobile networks) 119 (parts of Asia and Jamaica) 120 (China) 122 (Austria, Egypt, and Bosnia and Herzegovina) 123 (Colombia, Egypt) 128 (Mercosur member states) 190 (Brazil) 911 (Iraq, North America E-911 system, Philippines) 988 (North America Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) 999 (Bangladesh, UK and others) 1122 (Pakistan)
Telephones portal Telecommunication portal List article Category Wikimedia Commons