History of the Telephone

The telephone is probably the most common piece of technological equipment in the world today. Over 6 billion out of the world’s 7 billion people (85%) use one form of telephone or another.

The mid-nineteenth century saw many attempts to create a ‘telegraph’ that could transmit not only Morse code but also audible sound. Finally, in 1876, the first patent on such a technology was granted to Scottish-born Canadian Alexander Graham Bell.

The same year that Bell got his patent on the telephone, a Hungarian engineer named Tivadar Pusks created the telephone switchboard, an essential component for the creation of a telephone network.

From the 1870′s until the 1890′s, telephones were sold in pairs that would be connected over a distance for personal or business use, e.g. between a factory and the residence of its owner.

The creation of a telephone network through the use of switchboards began in Lexington, Massachusetts, in 1894. The operators were almost exclusively women, and for the next half-century, this was how all long-distance phone calls in the United States were relayed.

The ability to place direct long-distance phone calls was introduced only in 1951, when eleven cities across the U.S. were assigned “area codes.” Those cities were: Boston (617), Chicago (312), Cleveland (216), Detroit (313), Milwaukee (414), Oakland (415), Philadelphia (215), Pittsburgh (412), Providence (401), Sacramento (916), and San Francisco (318).

For the following four decades, the way that most of us used the telephone then remained unchanged. Technology behind the scenes improved. Signal transmission changed from analogue to digital, and automated switchboards were improved to be able to handle greater loads. But we pretty much picked up and used our telephones the same way. That is until the 1990′s, when mobile phone usage exploded and VoIP was invented.

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)

The latest majorly different way to transmit phone calls is known as VoIP, short for “Voice over Internet Protocol.” It was invented by Alon Cohen and Lior Haramaty in 1994, and introduced to the market in 1995 with the release of the first VoIP software by VocalTec.

Today, there are dozens of companies such as Skype or Vonage offering VoIP telephone services at rates that are usually much less than traditional landlines or mobile phone rates.

The main advantage of VoIP is obviously its low cost. Some often mentioned disadvantages include: 1) Unlisted number, whether you want it that way or not, 2) No ability make emergency calls (911 in North America, 112 in Europe), 3) VoIP phones will not work during a power outage.

Mobile Telephones

In the 1990′s the popularity of cell phones took off among the general population. However, primitive mobile phone technology had already existed for nearly half a century, with the first-ever mobile phone call being placed in 1946 from a car in St Louis, MO.

Another ten years later, the world’s first automatic mobile car phone was introduced in Sweden. It weighed close to 90 lbs and was made up of vacuum tubes and relays.

The real mobile phone revolution in the U.S. began in the 1990′s. Prior to 1990, only one in seventy Americans had a mobile phone. A decade later, one in three Americans carried a cell phone. As of 2011, on average, every American uses a cell phone. In fact, there are more mobile phones in use in the U.S. then there are people.

In a world of 7 billion people, there are 5.9 billion mobile phone service subscriptions. That’s a full 85% of the world’s population – greater than the number of adults in the world. In comparison, there are “only” one and a quarter billion paid landline phone services in the world. The mobile phone revolution is over. It took two decades.

With a background as a translator, writer and book publisher, Kent J Davidsson currently works in the utilities and communications industry. For quotes on communication services, including telephone, Internet and television, please write to him and his team via e-mail write to@lower-utility-bills.us.