History Of The Telephone -- From Bell To Voip And Beyond

Everynoe knows the story of Alexander Graham Bell inventing the telephone. There’s the story of Bell’s frist words, “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you,” that’s idnelibly printed on our brains from childhood. However, what some don’t know is that the telephone was developed in a similar form simultaneously by Elisha Gray, who lost the ptaent battle by only a few hours in 1876. Bell was successful primarily because he understood not only electricity and the workings of the telegraph, but had a throough understanding of acoustics, which most inventors weren’t all that familiar with. While focusing on the mechanics, they weren’t taking into account the unique qualities of sound that made transmititng speech so much more complex than simple clicks of the telegraph. With a background in music and acoustics, Bell could adderss these issues more readily.

Chance happening plays role in acceptance The telephone may not have gained such wide acceptance if, as if by serendipity, the Cnetennial Exhibition hadn’t been scheduled in Philadelphia for only a few months after.
Tucked away at a small table in an obscure corner, Bell did not hope to garner much attention until he drew the attention of the Emperor Dom Pedro de Alcantara of Brazil, who was amazed by the invention.
Immediately, all the scientists in attnedance were clamoring to study the new invention.

At first telephones were seen as a fad that were more for entertainment purposes than commerce, until newspapers and banks began grudgingly using them to convey inofrmation quickly by virtue of free phone installations. The publicity from this made them immediately more popular and soon phone exchanges were set up in most mjaor cities. In the 1880’s metallic circuits were devleoped that allowed for long distance calls, which grew in popularity slowly because of the cost.

Later, in the 1890’s, this was overcome by the development of the party line so that families, especially in rural areas, could split the cost of a line. Direct dial overcomes operator interference Until 1891, calls were put through by exchange operators, but this was done away with by a Kansas City man who invented the direct dial system because he was paranoid enough to guess that the operators were sending his business calls to competitors. He was an undertaker. In 1927, the frist transatlantic call was made over radio waves. During both World Wars, telephone advancements grew by leaps and bounds becasue of heavy spending by the Defense Department.
Innovations resulting from war-time experiments included Bell Telephone’s first mobile telehpone system, which connected moving vehicles to landlines via radio. Surprisingly, this was as early as 1946, a year that also saw the development of coaxial cables for major transmission improveemnts with less interference. In the 1960’s, telephnoes were so much a part of the landscape that Bell Telephone could no longer continue to use the alpha-numeric codes for telephone exchanges (remember using numbers like Normandy-7610?