History of telephones
These days, communications are vital, particularly when it comes to phone systems for businesses. Imagine how difficult it would be for companies to run their daily operations without business telephone systems. In this article, we take a look at the history of telephones.
The telephone is definitely one of the most important inventions. It has come a long way from its invention to the fancy modern smartphones that people use today and it fulfilled beautifully humanity’s wish to communicate over long distances. The history of telephones stretches over nearly 150 years and it has changed the way people communicate all across the world.
The progress of the telephones began in 1667, when Robert Hooke, an English polymath, invented the tin can telephone, also known as the string telephone. Nearly a century later, Charles Morrison suggested that electricity could be useful, yet no significant development was made until 1861, when an initial model of the speech-transmitting telephone was built.
The following years marked several experiments to successfully communicate through telephones. The most notable names in the field include Elisha Gray, Tivadar Puskas and Thomas Edison, one of the most influential inventors in history. However, despite attempts made by multiple inventors to create a functional device, Alexander Graham Bell is known as the inventor of the telephone.
He received the patent for it on March 7th 1876, which has remained in history as the official birthdate of the telephone. The first telephone communication was performed using an electromagnetic receiver and a liquid transmitter.
It wasn’t long until this invention started to be mass produced. In 1877, the first telephones were installed in Boston, USA. During the next three years, there were about 50,000 telephones installed. The initial telephones featured a built-in battery that had to be replaced on a constant basis.
In the following century, Bell’s telephone was significantly improved. Its popularity was outstanding in the United States. In 1904 over three million people had a telephone. At first there were telephone exchanges and an operator connecting the calls, so there were thousands of operators working in the field. At the beginning of the 20th century, there wasn’t any human intervention required to place a call.
The year 1915 featured a crucial event – a long-distance telephone call from one US coast to another. Alexander Graham Bell launched the project, along with his former assistant, who had been the recipient of the first initial telephone call. In the following decades, the phone got a handset that included not only a microphone, but an earpiece as well. It was called the Bell Model 102 and provided much more comfort to the subscribers, who had been previously forced to stick to a fixed position.
After the 1930’s, the evolution of the landline telephone was much slower. It became wireless, allowing the user to move freely while talking and the keypad was standardised, replacing the inconvenient and time-consuming rotary dial. But, meanwhile the development of a device began that would take things to a whole new level: the mobile phone.
In 1973, a Motorola engineer called Martin Copper showed how radio waves are able to transmit wirelessly by initiating a call through the new type of innovative telephone. Motorola remained in history as the inventor of the modern mobile phone. The first model (Motorola DynaTAC) weighed about one kilo and it required ten hours to recharge.
As the size and weight were significantly reduced due to constant improvements, in the early 1990’s, the mobile phones began to be sold on a large scale. The Finnish company Nokia emerged as the key manufacturer in the 90’s as it promoted GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) technology.
In the 21st century, the mobile phone mostly replaced the landline telephone and started to be a must-have for any individual. In 2002, Sony Ericsson launched the first touchscreen phone, which completely changed the design of modern devices. The launch of the first iPhone in 2007 marked the beginning of a new era of phones.
Nowadays, telephones have highly advanced features and operating systems. They expanded their means of communication from calls to texts and online interaction through various platforms.