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{{Short description|none}}
A '''Timeline of the history of the ]'''.


{{For|the timeline of the smart phone|Smartphone}}
==1849-1875==
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2022}}
*1849 ] demonstrates a device later called a telephone to individuals in ]. (It is disputed if this is an electric telephone.)
This timeline of the ] covers landline, radio, and ] technologies and provides many important dates in the ].
*1854 ] publishes a description of a make-break telephone transmitter and receiver but does not construct a working instrument.
*1854 ] demonstrates an electric telephone in New York.
*1860 ] demonstrates a make-break transmitter after the design of Bourseul.
*1860 ] demonstrates his telephone on ].
*1861 The German ] manages transfer voice electrically over a distance of 340 feet, see ].
*1871 Antonio Meucci files a patent ] (a statement of intention to patent).
*1872 ] founds ] Manufacturing Company.
*1872 Prof Vanderwyde demonstrated Reis's telephone in New York.
*July 1873 ] notes variable resistance in carbon grains due to pressure, builds a rheostat based on the principle but abaondons it because of its sensitivity to vibration.
*May 1874 Gray invents electromagnet device for transmitting musical tones. Some of his receivers use a metallic diaphragm.
*December 1874 Gray demonstrates his musical tones device at the Presbyterian Church in Highland Park, Illinois and lectures on the possibility of transmitting speech.
*] ] ] transmits the sound of a plucked steel reed using electromagnet instruments.
*] ] Bell uses a bi-directional "gallows" telephone that was able to transmit "indistinct but voicelike sounds" but not clear speech. Both the transmitter and the receiver were identical membrane electromagnet instruments.
*1875 ] experiments with ] and in November builds an electro-dynamic receiver but does not exploit it.


]
==1876-1878==
]
*] ] Elisha Gray invents liquid transmitter for use with a telephone, but does not build one.
]
*] ] (about 9:30 am) Gray or his lawyer brings to the Patent Office Gray's caveat for the telephone. (A caveat was like a patent application without claims and was an official notice of intention to file a patent application at a later date.)
]
*] ] (about 11:30am) Bell's lawyer brings to the Patent Office Bell's patent application for the telephone. Bell's lawyer requested that it be registered immediately in the cash receipts blotter.
]
**Two hours later Elisha Gray's caveat was registered in the cash blotter. Although his caveat was not a full application, Gray could have converted it into a patent application, but did not do so because of advice from his lawyer and involvement with ]. The result was that the patent was awarded to Bell. <ref>Hounshell, David A. 1975. Elisha Gray and the Telephone: On the Disadvantages of Being an Expert. ''Technology and Culture'' 16 (2):133-161.</ref>
]
*] ] Bell's US patent 174,465 for the telephone is granted.
]
*] ] Bell transmits speech "Mr. Watson, come here, I want you." using a liquid transmitter described in Gray's caveat and an electromagnetic receiver described in Gray's July 1875 US patent 166,095.
]
*] ] ] files first patent application for ].
]
*October ] ] tests his first carbon ].
]
*] ] Bell's US patent 186,787 is granted for an electro-magnetic telephone with transmitter and receiver using steel diaphragms and a call bell.
*] ] ] invents a microphone based on "loose contact" between two metal electrodes, an improvement on the Reis telephone, and in April 1877 files a caveat of an invention in process.
*] ] ] files telephone patent application. The US patents (474,230, 474,231 and 474,231) were awarded to Edison in ] over the competing claims of ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ] and ].<ref>Edison, Thomas A. 1880. ''The Speaking Telephone Interferences, Evidence for Thomas A. Edison. Vol. 1'' , . Available from http://edison.rutgers.edu/singldoc.htm.</ref>
*] ] ] files telephone patent application that includes a carbon microphone transmitter.
*] ] ] enters the telephone business using ]'s superior carbon microphone transmitter.
*January ] First North American telephone exchange opened in ].
*] ] ] demonstrates telephone between Menlo Park, New York and Philadelphia, a distance of 210 km.
*] ] The Telephone Company Ltd (Bell's Patents) registered, London. Opened in London 21 August 1879 - Europe's first telephone exchange.
*] ] The Bell Telephone Co. sues Western Union for infringing Bell's patents.


==1879-1919== ==1667 to 1875==
* 1667: ] creates an ] ] that conveys sounds over a taut extended wire by mechanical vibrations.<ref name="McVeigh">McVeigh, Daniel P.
*Early months of ] The Bell Telephone Co. is near bankruptcy and desperate to get a transmitter to equal Edison's carbon transmitter.
(archived from on 18 June 2013), ] website. Retrieved 15 January 2013.</ref><ref name="ScottishPostOffice">Giles, Arthur (editor). , Edinburgh: R. Grant & Son, 1902, p. 28.</ref>
*1879 Bell merges with the ] to form the ].
* 1844: ] first suggests the idea of an electric "speaking telegraph", or ].
*] Francis Blake invents a carbon transmitter similar to Edison's that saves the Bell company from extinction.
* 1849: ] demonstrates a communicating device to individuals in ]. It is disputed that this is an electromagnetic telephone, but it is said to involve direct transmission of electricity into the user's body.
*] ] The Edison Telephone Company of London Ltd, registered. Opened in London 6 September 1879.
* 1854: ] publishes a description of a make-and-break telephone transmitter and receiver in '']'', (Paris) but does not construct a working instrument.
*] ] Connolly and McTighe patent a "dial" telephone exchange (limited in the number of lines to the number of positions on the dial.).
* 1854: Meucci demonstrates an electric voice-operated device in New York, but it is not clear what kind of device he demonstrated.
*1880 National Bell merges with others to form the ].
* 1860: ] of Germany demonstrates a ] after the design of Bourseul and a knitting-needle receiver. Witnesses said they heard human voices being transmitted.
* ] A telephone company --an ] affiliate-- is set up in ].
* 1861: Johann Philipp Reis transfers voice electrically over a distance of 340 feet with his ]. To prove that speech can be recognized successfully at the receiving end, he uses the phrase "The horse does not eat cucumber salad" as an example because this phrase is hard to understand acoustically in German.
*1885 American Telephone and Telegraph Company ] is formed.
* 1864: In an attempt to give his musical ] a voice, Innocenzo Manzetti invents the 'speaking telegraph'. He shows no interest in patenting his device, but it is reported in newspapers.
*1886 ]'s ''']''' is put into service between ] and ] allowing for the first ] allowing one operator to run two exchanges.
* 1865: Meucci reads of Manzetti's invention and writes to the editors of two newspapers claiming priority and quoting his first experiment in 1849. He writes "I do not wish to deny Mr. Manzetti his invention, I only wish to observe that two thoughts could be found to contain the same discovery, and that by uniting the two ideas one can more easily reach the certainty about a thing this important."
*] ] the Government of the United States moves to annul the patent issued to ] on the grounds of fraud and misrepresentation. Bell remanded for trial.
* 1871: Meucci files a ] (a statement of intention to file a ])<ref>.</ref> for a Sound Telegraph, but it does not describe an electromagnetic telephone.
*1899 AT&T becomes the overall holding company for all the Bell companies.
* 1872: ] founds the ].
*] ] ] patents a telegraph switch which provides for ] between groups of selectors allowing for the first time, fewer trunks than there are lines, and automatic selection of an idle trunk.
* 1872: Professor Vanderwyde demonstrates Reis's telephone in New York.
*] ] ] patents the ] the first ].
* July 1873: ] notes varying resistance in carbon grains due to pressure, and builds a rheostat based on the principle but abandons it because of its sensitivity to vibration.
*] ] The Strowger Automatic Telephone Exchange company is formed.
* May 1874: Gray invents an electromagnet device for transmitting musical tones. Some of his receivers use a metallic diaphragm.
*] ] ] awarded patents for the ] against applications lodged in ].
* July 1874: ] conceives the theoretical concept for the telephone while vacationing at his parents' farm near ], Ontario, Canada. ] records notes of his son's conversation in his personal journal.
*] ] The first ] goes into operation in ] with 75 subscribers and capacity for 99.
* 29 December 1874: Gray demonstrates his musical tones device and transmits "familiar melodies through telegraph wire" at the Presbyterian Church in Highland Park, Illinois.
*] ] ] declares void ]'s patent of the Bell telephone system
* 4 May 1875: Bell conceives of using varying resistance in a wire conducting electric current to create a varying current amplitude.<ref>Bruce (1990), pages 144-145.</ref>
*1915 Vacuum tubes used in coast-to-coast telephone circuits.
* 2 June 1875: Bell transmits the sound of a plucked steel reed using electromagnet instruments.
*1915 First trans-atlantic voice transmission
* 1 July 1875: Bell uses a bi-directional "gallows" telephone that was able to transmit "indistinct but voice-like sounds" rather than clear speech. Both the transmitter and the receiver were identical membrane electromagnet instruments.
*1919 AT&T installs the first dial telephones in the Bell System, in ]. The last manual telephones in the system were not converted to dial until 1978 when the last of the first bell phones were no longer made.
* 1875: Thomas Edison experiments with ] and, in November, builds an electro-dynamic receiver but does not exploit it.


==1927-2005== == 1876 to 1878 ==
*1927 First public trans-atlantic phone call (via radio)
*1935 First telephone call around the world.
*1941 ] dialing introduced for operators in ]
*] National numbering plan (]s)
*1946 First commercial ] call
*1946 ] develops the ] ]
*1951 ] (DDD) first offered at ], to 11 selected major cities across the United States; this service grew rapidly across major cities during the 1950s
*1955 The laying of trans-Atlantic cabels began
*1958 ]s used for direct connection via voice phone lines
*1960 ]
*] ] released to public
*1962 ] service in ]
*] ] electronic switch.
*1970 Modular telephone cords and jacks introduced
*1972 US patent 3,663,762 granted to Amos Joel of ], inventor of the "cellular mobile communication system"
*1975 Last manual telephone switchboard in ] is retired
*1982 ] patented by ], ]
*1987 ] introduced
*1993 ] available for the disabled
*1995 ] implemented nationally in USA
*2002 ] was recognized as the first inventor of the telephone by the ], in House Resolution 269, dated 11 June. The ] retaliated by passing a bill recognizing Canadian immigrant Alexander Graham Bell as the only inventor of the telephone.
*2005 ] gets phone service (Last in the USA)


* 11 February 1876: ] invents a ] for use with a telephone, but he did not make one.
--] 05:21, 16 July 2006 (UTC)steve Villegas==References==
* 14 February 1876
<references/>hello reference
** about 9:30{{nbsp}}am: Gray or his lawyer brings Gray's ] for the telephone to the ] (a caveat was a notice of intention to file a patent application. It was like a ], but without a request for examination, for the purpose of notifying the patent office of a possible ] in process).
** about 11:30{{nbsp}}am: Bell's lawyer brings to the same patent office Bell's patent application for the telephone. Bell's lawyer requests that it be registered immediately in the cash receipts blotter.
** about 1:30{{nbsp}}pm: Approximately two hours later Elisha Gray's ] is registered in the cash blotter. Although his caveat was not a full application, Gray could have converted it into a patent application and contested Bell's priority, but did not do so because of advice from his lawyer and his involvement with ]. The result was that the patent was awarded to Bell.<ref>] 1975. "Elisha Gray and the Telephone: On the Disadvantages of Being an Expert", ''Technology and Culture'', 1975, Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 133–161.</ref>
* 7 March 1876: Bell's ], No. 174,465 for the telephone is granted.
* 10 March 1876: Bell first successfully transmits speech, saying "Mr. Watson, come here! I want to see you!" using a liquid transmitter as described in Gray's caveat, and Bell's own electromagnetic receiver.
* 16 May 1876: ] files first patent application for ] for which U.S. patent 182,996 was granted 10 October 1876.
* 25 June 1876: Bell exhibits his telephone at the ] in Philadelphia, where it draws enthusiastic reactions from Emperor ] of Brazil and ], attracting the attention of the press and resulting in the first announcements of the invention to the general public. Lord Kelvin describes the telephone as "the greatest by far of all the marvels of the electric telegraph".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20170407132609/http://www.ingenious.org.uk/See/Scienceandtechnology/Telecommunications/?target=SeeMedium&ObjectID={26E01AAD-9528-A037-3F8D-18F71C87E944}&s=S1&viewby=images& |title=Bell's centennial telephone transmitter, 1876 |publisher=National Archives UK |access-date=14 January 2020 }}</ref>
* 10 August 1876: Alexander Graham Bell makes the world's first long-distance telephone call, one-way, not reciprocal, over a distance of about 6 miles, between ] and ], Canada.
* 1876: Hungarian ] invents the ] (later working with Edison).
* 9 October 1876: Bell makes the first two-way long-distance telephone call between Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts.
* October 1876: Edison tests his first ].
* 1877: The first experimental Telephone Exchange in Boston.
* 20 January 1877: Edison "first in transmitting over wires many articulated sentences" using carbon granules as a pressure-sensitive varying resistance under the pressure of a diaphragm.<ref>Josephson, p. 143.</ref>
* 30 January 1877: Bell's U.S. Patent No. 186,787 is granted for an electromagnetic telephone using permanent magnets, iron diaphragms, and a call bell.
* 4 March 1877: ] invents a microphone based on "loose contact" between two metal electrodes, an improvement on ], and in April 1877 files a caveat of an invention in process.
* April 1877: A ] connects the workshop of Charles Williams, Jr., located in ], to ] in ], at 109 Court Street in Boston, where ] and ] had previously experimented with their telephone. The telephones became No. 1 and 2 in the ].<ref>John Lossing, Woodrow Wilson. , Harper & Brothers, 1905. Original from ], Digitized: 25 June 2009.</ref>
* 27 April 1877: Edison files telephone patent applications. U.S. patents (Nos. 474,230, 474,231 and 474,232) were awarded to Edison in 1892 over the competing claims of ], ], ], ], J.W. McDonagh, G.B. Richmond, W.L.W. Voeker, J.H. Irwin and ].<ref>Edison, Thomas A. 1880. (jpg image), .</ref> Edison's ] and Bell's electromagnetic receiver are used, with improvements, by the ] for many decades thereafter.<ref>Josephson, p. 146.</ref>
* 4 June 1877: Emile Berliner files telephone patent application that includes a carbon microphone transmitter.
* 9 July 1877: The ], a ] ], is organized by Alexander Graham Bell's future father-in-law ], a lawyer who becomes its first president.
* 6 October 1877: the Scientific American publishes the invention from Bell – at that time still without a ringer.
* 25 October 1877: the article in the Scientific American is discussed at the Telegraphenamt in Berlin
* November 1877: First permanent telephone connection in UK between two business in ] using imported Bell instruments.
* 12 November 1877: The first commercial telephone company enters telephone business in Friedrichsberg close to Berlin<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://cdrecord.org/private/tel.html|title = Cdrtools (Cdrecord) release information}}</ref> using the Siemens pipe as ringer and telephone devices built by Siemens.
* 1 December 1877: ] enters the telephone business using Edison's superior carbon microphone transmitter.
* 14 January 1878: Bell demonstrates the device to ] and gives her an opportunity to try it. Calls are made to Cowes, Southampton and London, the first long-distance calls in the ].<ref></ref> The queen asks to buy the equipment that was used, but Bell offers to make a model specifically for her.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/magbell.30000106/ |title=pdf, Letter from Alexander Graham Bell to Sir Thomas Biddulph, February 1, 1878 |publisher=Library of Congress |access-date=14 January 2020 |quote="The instruments at present in Osborne are merely those supplied for ordinary commercial purposes, and it will afford me much pleasure to be permitted to offer to the Queen a set of Telephones to be made expressly for her Majesty's use."}}</ref>
* 28 January 1878: The first commercial North American ] is opened in ].
* 4 February 1878: Edison demonstrates the telephone between ], New Jersey and ].
* 14 June 1878: The Telephone Company (Bell's Patents) Ltd. is registered in London. Opened in London on 21 August 1879, it is Europe's first telephone exchange, followed a couple of weeks later by one in ].<ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101207102045/http://www.mosi.org.uk/media/33871608/earlymanchestertelephoneexchanges.pdf |date=7 December 2010 }}</ref>
* 12 September 1878: the Bell Telephone Company sues Western Union for infringing Bell's patents.
* 1878: The first Australian telephone trials were made between ] and ] (and later ] and ]) in South Australia.<ref name="FirstAust">{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article46982173 |title= Development of Telephone | newspaper = ] |location=Adelaide |date=21 June 1933 |access-date=16 April 2012 | page=5 | publisher = National Library of Australia}}</ref>


== 1879 to 1919 ==
--] 05:23, 16 July 2006 (UTC)gfdgf==See also==
]
]
* Early months of 1879: The ] is near bankruptcy and desperate to get a transmitter to equal Edison's carbon transmitter.
* 17 February 1879: Bell Telephone merges with the New England Telephone Company to form the National Bell Telephone Company. ] takes over operations.
* 1879: Francis Blake invents a carbon transmitter similar to Edison's that saves the Bell company from extinction.
* 2 August 1879: The Edison Telephone Company London Ltd, registered. Opened in London 6 September 1879.
* 10 September 1879: Connolly and McTighe patent a "dial" telephone exchange (limited in the number of lines to the number of positions on the dial.).
* 1879: The ] (IBTC) of ] was founded by ] president ], initially to sell imported ]s and ] in ].<ref name="StowgerNet">StowgerNet Museum. , StowgerNet Telephone Museum website. Retrieved 20 August 2010.</ref><ref name="BOPw">Bob's Old Phones. , Bob's Old Phones website. Retrieved 17 August 2010.</ref> International Bell rapidly evolved into an important European ] and manufacturer, with major operations in several countries.
* 19 February 1880: The ], also called a ], is invented jointly by Alexander Graham Bell and ] at Bell's ].<ref>Bruce 1990, pg. 336</ref><ref name="SDU">Jones, Newell. {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20060904235846/http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/recording/ar304.html |date=4 September 2006 }}, San Diego Evening Tribune, 31 July 1937. Retrieved from the University of San Diego History Department website, 26 November 2009.</ref> The device allowed for the ] of sound on a beam of light.
* 20 March 1880: National Bell Telephone merges with others to form the ].
* 1 April 1880: world's first wireless telephone call on Bell and Tainter's photophone (distant precursor to ]s) from the ] in Washington, D.C. to the window of Bell's laboratory, 213 meters away.<ref>Bruce 1990, pg.338</ref><ref name="Carson-2007-gvttw">Carson 2007, pg.76-78</ref>
* 1 July 1881: The world's first international ] is made between ], Canada, and ], United States.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.famousdaily.com/history/worlds-first-international-telephone-call.html|title=First international phone call}}</ref>
* 11 October 1881: The ] telephone exchange opened with 12 subscribers.
* 1882: A telephone company—an American Bell Telephone Company affiliate—is set up in Mexico City.
* 14 May 1883: The ] exchange was opened, with 48 subscribers.<ref name="FirstAust" />
* 7 September 1883: The ] exchange was opened, with 21 subscribers.<ref name="FirstAust" />
* 4 September 1884: Opening of telephone service between New York and Boston (235 miles).<ref name="Bell1953">{{cite book|title=The Magic of Communication|publisher=Bell Telephone System|date=October 1953}}</ref>
* 3 March 1885: The ] (AT&T) is incorporated as the long-distance division of American Bell Telephone Company. It will become the head of the ] on the last day of 1899.
* 1886: Gilliland's ''Automatic circuit changer'' is put into service between ] and ] featuring the first operator dialing allowing one operator to run two exchanges.
* 1887: Tivadar Puskás introduced the ] ], that had an epochal significance in the further development of telephone exchange.<ref>Francis S. Wagner: ''Hungarian Contributions to World Civilization'' – Page 68</ref>
* 13 January 1887: the Government of the United States moves to annul the master patent issued to ] on the grounds of fraud and misrepresentation. The case, known as the 'Government Case', is later dropped after it was revealed that the U.S. Attorney General, ] had been given millions of dollars of stock in the company trying to unseat Bell's telephone patent.
* 1888: Telephone patent court cases are confirmed by the Supreme Court, see ]
* 1889: AT&T becomes the overall holding company for all the Bell companies.
* 2 November 1889: A.G. Smith patents a telegraph switch which provides for ] between groups of selectors allowing for the first time, fewer trunks than there are lines, and automatic selection of an idle trunk.
* 10 March 1891: ] patents the ] the first ].
* 30 October 1891: The independent ] is formed.
* 3 May 1892: ] awarded patents for the ] based on applications lodged in 1877.
* 18 October 1892: Opening of telephone service between New York and Chicago (950 miles).<ref name="Bell1953"/>
* 3 November 1892: The first ] goes into operation in ], with 75 subscribers and capacity for 99.
* 30 January 1894: The second fundamental Bell patent for the telephone expires; ] established, and independent manufacturing companies (] in 1894 and ] in 1897).
* 30 December 1899: ] is purchased by its own long-distance subsidiary, ] (AT&T) to bypass state regulations limiting capitalization. AT&T assumes leadership role of the ].
* 25 December 1900: John W. Atkins, the manager at International Ocean Telegraph Company (IOTC), a subsidiary of ] Telegraph Company made the first international telephone call over telegraph cable at 09:55 from his office in Key West to Havana, Cuba.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://atlantic-cable.com/CableCos/KeyWest/index2.htm|title = History of the Atlantic Cable & Submarine Telegraphy - Key West}}</ref> Atkins was reported in the ] as saying, "For a long time there was no sound, except the roar heard at night sometimes, caused by electric light current." He continued calling Cuba and finally came back the words, clear and distinct: "I don't understand you."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.iol.co.za/scitech/technology/a-centenary-of-christmas-phone-calls-1.57637|title=A centenary of Christmas phone calls}}</ref>
* 27 February 1901: ] declares void ]'s patent for a telephone transmitter used by the Bell telephone system
* 1902: The first Australian interstate calls between ] and ].<ref name="FirstAust" />
* 26 February 1914: Boston-Washington underground cable commenced commercial service.<ref name="Bell1953"/>
* 16 January 1915: The first automatic ] exchange was installed at the Mulberry Central Office in ]; but was a semi-automatic system using non-dial telephones.
* 25 January 1915: ] (3600 miles), with ] at 333 Grant Avenue in San Francisco receiving a call from Alexander Graham Bell at 15 Dey Street in New York City, facilitated by a newly invented vacuum tube amplifier.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0125.html |title=Phone to Pacific From the Atlantic |work=] |date=26 January 1915 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010616082913/https://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0125.html |archive-date=16 June 2001}}</ref>
* 21 October 1915: First transmission of speech across the Atlantic Ocean by radiotelephone from Arlington, Virginia to Paris, France.<ref name="Bell1953"/>
* 1919: The first ] telephones in the Bell System installed in ]. Telephones that lacked dials and ] pads were no longer made by the Bell System after 1978.{{Citation needed|date=January 2010}}
* 1919: AT&T conducts more than 4,000 measurements of people's heads to gauge the best dimensions of standard headsets so that callers' lips would be near the microphone when holding handsets up to their ears.<ref>
{{cite book
| last = Feldman
| first = David
| title = When Do Fish Sleep? And Other Imponderables of Everyday Life
| publisher = Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.
| year = 1989
| pages = 15
| url = https://archive.org/details/whendofishsleepa00feld
| isbn = 0-06-016161-2
| url-access = registration
}}</ref>


== 1920 to 1969 ==
* 16 July 1920: World's first radiotelephone service commences public service between Los Angeles and ].<ref name="Bell1953"/>
* 11 April 1921: Opening of deep sea cable from Key West, Florida, to Havana, Cuba (115 miles).<ref name="Bell1953"/>
* 22 December 1923: Opening of second transcontinental telephone line via a southern route.<ref name="Bell1953"/>
* 7 March 1926: First ] call, from London to New York.<ref>{{cite book | title=Person to person: the international impact of the telephone | first=Peter | last=Young | publisher=] Editions | year=1991 | page=285 | isbn=0-906782-62-7 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WWDbAAAAMAAJ&q=first+transatlantic+phone+call+march+7+1926}}</ref>
* 7 January 1927: Transatlantic telephone service inaugurated for commercial service (3500 miles).<ref name="Bell1953"/>
* 17 January 1927: Opening of third transcontinental telephone line via a northern route.<ref name="Bell1953"/>
* 7 April 1927: world's first ] call via an electro-mechanical AT&T unit, from Washington, D.C. to New York City, by then-Commerce Secretary ].<ref>, ''The New York Times'', 10 April 1930, pg. 25 (subscription);</ref><ref name="NYT19270408a">, ''The New York Times'', 8 April 1927, pg. 20 (subscription)</ref>
*8 December 1929: Opening of commercial ship-to-shore telephone service.<ref name="Bell1953"/>
*3 April 1930: Opening of transoceanic telephone service to Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay and subsequently to all other South American countries.<ref name="Bell1953"/>
*1931: The ] was the first telephone without a separate ].<ref></ref>
*25 April 1935: First telephone call around the world by wire and radio.<ref name="Bell1953"/>
*1937: The Western Electric ] becomes available for service in the United States.
*8 December 1937: Opening of fourth transcontinental telephone line.<ref name="Bell1953"/>
*1941: ] dialing introduced for operators in ]
*1942: Telephone production is halted at ] until 1945 for civilian distribution due to the retooling of factories for military equipment during World War II.
*1946: National Numbering Plan (]s)
*1946: first commercial ] call
*1946: ] develops the ] ]
*1947: December, ] and ], Bell Labs engineers, proposed hexagonal cells for provisioning of mobile telephone service.
*1948: Phil Porter, a Bell Labs engineer, proposed that cell towers be at the corners of the hexagons rather than the centers and have directional antennas pointing in 3 directions.
*1950: The Western Electric ] becomes available in the United States after announcement in 1949.
*30 June 1948: First public demonstration of the ] by ].<ref name="Bell1953"/>
*10 November 1951: ] (DDD) first offered on trial basis at ], to 11 selected major cities across the United States; this service grew rapidly across major cities during the 1950s
*1955: the laying of trans-Atlantic cable ] began – 36 circuits, later increased to 48 by reducing the bandwidth from 4&nbsp;kHz to 3&nbsp;kHz
*1957: First semiconductor oxiode(silicon dioxide) planar transitors by Frosch and Derick at Bell Labs.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Frosch |first1=C. J. |last2=Derick |first2=L |date=1957 |title=Surface Protection and Selective Masking during Diffusion in Silicon |url=https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1149/1.2428650 |journal=Journal of the Electrochemical Society |language=en |volume=104 |issue=9 |pages=547 |doi=10.1149/1.2428650}}</ref>
*1958: ]s used for direct connection via voice phone lines
*1959: The ] is introduced in the Bell System in the United States.
*1959: UKs first public car radio-telephone service opens in ] and ]
*1959: Following Frosch and Derick research at Bell Labs,<ref name="Lojek12022">{{cite book |last1=Lojek |first1=Bo |title=History of Semiconductor Engineering |date=2007 |publisher=] |isbn=9783540342588 |page=120}}</ref> ] and ] proposed a silicon MOS transistor in 1959 at Bell Labs.<ref name="Bassett222">{{cite book |last1=Bassett |first1=Ross Knox |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UUbB3d2UnaAC&pg=PA22 |title=To the Digital Age: Research Labs, Start-up Companies, and the Rise of MOS Technology |date=2007 |publisher=] |isbn=978-0-8018-8639-3 |pages=22–23}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Atalla |first1=M. |author1-link=Mohamed Atalla |last2=Kahng |first2=D. |author2-link=Dawon Kahng |date=1960 |title=Silicon-silicon dioxide field induced surface devices |journal=IRE-AIEE Solid State Device Research Conference}}</ref>
*1960: A working ] is built by a team at Bell Labs. E. E. LaBate and E. I. Povilonis made the device; M. O. Thurston, L. A. D’Asaro, and J. R. Ligenza developed the diffusion processes, and H. K. Gummel and R. Lindner characterized the device.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=KAHNG |first=D. |date=1961 |title=Silicon-Silicon Dioxide Surface Device |url=https://doi.org/10.1142/9789814503464_0076 |journal=Technical Memorandum of Bell Laboratories |pages=583–596 |doi=10.1142/9789814503464_0076 |isbn=978-981-02-0209-5}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Lojek |first=Bo |title=History of Semiconductor Engineering |date=2007 |publisher=Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg |isbn=978-3-540-34258-8 |location=Berlin, Heidelberg |page=321}}</ref>
*1 November 1960: The Bell System begins testing its push-button phone, starting with service in ].<ref>[https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-plain-dealer-the-testing-of-the-push/160770253/ "Phone Without Dial Makes Bow in Ohio", by Jim Flanagan, ''Cleveland Plain Dealer'', February 27, 1961, p.1 ("The Ohio Bell Telephone Co. began installations Nov. 1.")</ref>
*1960: Bell Labs conducts extensive field trial of an electronic central office in ], known at the ''Morris System''.
*1960s: ] developed the electronics for ]
*1961: Initiation of ] service trials
*1962: ] service in ]
*18 November 1963: AT&T commences the first subscriber ] service in the towns of ] and ], using ]s that replaced ] instruments.
*31 May 1965: The world's first ] commences commercial service in ], in form of the ].
*1965: first geosynchronous communications ] – 240 circuits or one TV signal
*1965: The ] is introduced by Western Electric for use in the Bell System.

== 1970 to 1999 ==

*1970: ] electronic switch.
*1970: modular telephone cords and jacks introduced.
*1970: ] of ] invented the "call handoff" system for "cellular mobile communication system" (patent granted 1972).
*1970: British companies ], ] and ] develop the digital ], based on ] (MOS) ] (IC) technology.<ref name="Wireless-World">{{cite journal |title=Push-button telephone chips |journal=] |date=August 1970 |page=383 |url=https://www.americanradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-Site-Early-Radio/Archive-Wireless-World-IDX/70s/Wireless-World-1970-08-OCR-Page-0023.pdf}}</ref><ref name="Valery1974">{{cite journal |last1=Valéry |first1=Nicholas |title=Debut for the telephone on a chip |journal=] |date=11 April 1974 |volume=62 |issue=893 |pages=65–7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u0O-g0_fbrIC&pg=PA65 |publisher=] |issn=0262-4079}}</ref> It uses ] chips to store ], which could then be used for ].<ref name="Wireless-World"/><ref name="Valery1974"/><ref name="US23">{{cite book |title=Electronic Components |date=1974 |publisher=] |page=23 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HikuAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA23}}</ref>
*1971: AT&T submitted a proposal for cellular phone service to the U.S. ] (FCC).
*3 April 1973: ] employee ] placed the first hand-held ] call to Joel Engel, head of research at AT&T's ], while talking on the first ] prototype.
*1973: packet switched voice connections over ] with ] (NVP).
*1973: Bell Labs combined MOS technology with ] technology to develop a push-button MOS touch-tone phone called the "Touch-O-Matic" telephone, which uses ] chips and could store up to 32 phone numbers.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Gust |first1=Victor |last2=Huizinga |first2=Donald |last3=Paas |first3=Terrance |title=Call anywhere at the touch of a button |journal=] |date=January 1976 |volume=54 |pages=3–8 |url=http://doc.telephonecollectors.info/dm/76Jan_BLR_P3_Touch_A_Matic.pdf#page=2}}</ref>
*1974: ], Paul R. Gray and R.E. Suarez at ] develop MOS ] technology, in the form of the MOS ] (SC) circuit, which they use to develop the ] (DAC) chip used in digital telephony.<ref name="Allstot">{{cite book |last1=Allstot |first1=David J. |url=https://ieee-cas.org/sites/default/files/a_short_history_of_circuits_and_systems-_ebook-_web.pdf |title=A Short History of Circuits and Systems: From Green, Mobile, Pervasive Networking to Big Data Computing |date=2016 |publisher=] |isbn=9788793609860 |editor-last1=Maloberti |editor-first1=Franco |pages=105–110 |chapter=Switched Capacitor Filters |editor-last2=Davies |editor-first2=Anthony C.}}</ref>
*1975: Paul R. Gray and J. McCreary develop the ] (ADC) MOS chip, used in digital telephony.<ref name="Allstot"/>
*1976: ] invented ]
*1978: Bell Labs launched a trial of the first commercial cellular network in Chicago using ] (AMPS).
*1978: World's first ] phone call in ], Finland.<ref name="Finland">{{Cite web |url=http://www.tampere.fi/english/tampereinbrief/history/index.html |title=Finland |access-date=2 April 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091228062929/http://www.tampere.fi/english/tampereinbrief/history/index.html |archive-date=28 December 2009 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
*1979: ] – NVP running on top of early versions of ]
*1980: W.C. Black and David A. Hodges develop the ] ] (complementary MOS) ] (PCM) codec-filter chip,<ref name="Allstot"/> which has since been the industry standard for ],<ref name="Allstot"/><ref name="Gibson26">{{cite book |last1=Floyd |first1=Michael D. |last2=Hillman |first2=Garth D. |chapter=Pulse-Code Modulation Codec-Filters |title=The Communications Handbook |edition=2nd |date=8 October 2018 |orig-year=1st pub. 2000 |pages=26-1, 26-2, 26-3 |publisher=] |isbn=9781420041163 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Tokk5bZxB0MC&pg=SA26-PA1}}</ref> widely used in the ] (PSTN) as well as ] and cell phones.<ref name="Gibson26"/>
*1981: The world's first fully automatic mobile phone system ] is started in Sweden and Norway.
*1981: BT introduces the ] system.
*1982: FCC approved AT&T proposal for AMPS and allocated frequencies in the 824-894&nbsp;MHz band.
*1982: ] patented by Carolyn Doughty, ]
*1983: last manual telephone switchboard in ] is retired
*1984: ] completes the ] of its local operating companies. This forms a new AT&T (long-distance service and equipment sales) and the ].
*1987: ] introduced
*1988: First transatlantic fiber optic cable ], carrying 40,000 circuits
*1990: analog AMPS was superseded by ].
*1991: the ] mobile phone network is started in Finland, with the first phone call in Tampere.<ref name="Finland"/>
*1993: ] available for the disabled
*1994: The ] becomes the first ] on the market.
*1995: ] implemented nationally in USA
*1999: creation of the ] ]

== 2000 to present ==
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NOTE: This article is on the traditional telephone, the telephone shall be removed for years.
not on smartphone technology and operating systems. Please refrain from placing non- birch traditional telephone items here.

All new items also require citations to reliable sources. Items lacking them will be removed.

Thanks.

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* 11 June 2002: ] is recognized for "...his work ''in the invention of'' the telephone" (but not "...''for inventing'' the telephone") by the ], in ].<ref>.</ref>
* 21 June 2002: The ] responds by passing a motion unanimously 10 days later recognizing ] as the ].<ref name="Hansard"> ''Hansard of the Government of Canada'', 21 June 2002, pg.1620 / cumulative pg.13006, time mark: 1205. Retrieved: 29 April 2009.</ref><ref name="Globe">Fox, Jim, "Bell's Legacy Rings Out at his Homes", '']'', 17 August 2002.</ref>
* 2005: ], finally receives traditional landline telephone service (one of the last in the United States).<ref>, WISTV.com website, 1 February 2005.</ref>

== See also ==
{{Portal|Telephones}}
* ], a major monument dedicated to the invention of the telephone
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]

== Notes ==

{{reflist|30em}}

== Bibliography ==

* Bourseul, Charles (1854), ''Transmission électrique de la parole'', Paris: '']'', 26 August 1854.{{in lang|fr}}
* Thompson, Sylvanus P. (1883), ''Philipp Reis, Inventor of the Telephone'', London: E. & F. N. Spon, 1883.
* Coe, Lewis (1995), ''The Telephone and Its Several Inventors: A History'', North Carolina: McFarland, 1995. {{ISBN|0-7864-0138-9}}
* Baker, Burton H. (2000), ''The Gray Matter: The Forgotten Story of the Telephone'', Telepress, St. Joseph, Michigan, 2000. {{ISBN|0-615-11329-X}}
* Josephson, Matthew (1992), ''Edison: A Biography'', Wiley, {{ISBN|0-471-54806-5}}
* Bruce, Robert V. (1990), ''Bell: Alexander Bell and the Conquest of Solitude'', Cornell University Press, 1990. {{ISBN|0-8014-9691-8}}
* Farley, Tom (2007), "The Cell-Phone Revolution", ''Invention & Technology'', Winter 2007, vol. 22:3, pages 8–19.

== External links ==
*
{{Gutenberg | no=979 | name=Heroes of the Telegraph by John Munro}}
* on first transatlantic telephone call.
*

{{Telecommunications}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Timeline Of The Telephone}}
] ]
] ]

Latest revision as of 17:23, 26 December 2024

For the timeline of the smart phone, see Smartphone.

This timeline of the telephone covers landline, radio, and cellular telephony technologies and provides many important dates in the history of the telephone.

Charles Bourseul
Johann Philipp Reis
Elisha Gray
Thomas Edison
Alexander Graham Bell
Thomas Augustus Watson
Tivadar Puskás
Emile Berliner
Charles Sumner Tainter
Theodore Newton Vail

1667 to 1875

  • 1667: Robert Hooke creates an acoustic string telephone that conveys sounds over a taut extended wire by mechanical vibrations.
  • 1844: Innocenzo Manzetti first suggests the idea of an electric "speaking telegraph", or telephone.
  • 1849: Antonio Meucci demonstrates a communicating device to individuals in Havana. It is disputed that this is an electromagnetic telephone, but it is said to involve direct transmission of electricity into the user's body.
  • 1854: Charles Bourseul publishes a description of a make-and-break telephone transmitter and receiver in L'Illustration, (Paris) but does not construct a working instrument.
  • 1854: Meucci demonstrates an electric voice-operated device in New York, but it is not clear what kind of device he demonstrated.
  • 1860: Johann Philipp Reis of Germany demonstrates a make-and-break transmitter after the design of Bourseul and a knitting-needle receiver. Witnesses said they heard human voices being transmitted.
  • 1861: Johann Philipp Reis transfers voice electrically over a distance of 340 feet with his Reis telephone. To prove that speech can be recognized successfully at the receiving end, he uses the phrase "The horse does not eat cucumber salad" as an example because this phrase is hard to understand acoustically in German.
  • 1864: In an attempt to give his musical automaton a voice, Innocenzo Manzetti invents the 'speaking telegraph'. He shows no interest in patenting his device, but it is reported in newspapers.
  • 1865: Meucci reads of Manzetti's invention and writes to the editors of two newspapers claiming priority and quoting his first experiment in 1849. He writes "I do not wish to deny Mr. Manzetti his invention, I only wish to observe that two thoughts could be found to contain the same discovery, and that by uniting the two ideas one can more easily reach the certainty about a thing this important."
  • 1871: Meucci files a patent caveat (a statement of intention to file a patent application) for a Sound Telegraph, but it does not describe an electromagnetic telephone.
  • 1872: Elisha Gray founds the Western Electric Manufacturing Company.
  • 1872: Professor Vanderwyde demonstrates Reis's telephone in New York.
  • July 1873: Thomas Edison notes varying resistance in carbon grains due to pressure, and builds a rheostat based on the principle but abandons it because of its sensitivity to vibration.
  • May 1874: Gray invents an electromagnet device for transmitting musical tones. Some of his receivers use a metallic diaphragm.
  • July 1874: Alexander Graham Bell conceives the theoretical concept for the telephone while vacationing at his parents' farm near Brantford, Ontario, Canada. Alexander Melville Bell records notes of his son's conversation in his personal journal.
  • 29 December 1874: Gray demonstrates his musical tones device and transmits "familiar melodies through telegraph wire" at the Presbyterian Church in Highland Park, Illinois.
  • 4 May 1875: Bell conceives of using varying resistance in a wire conducting electric current to create a varying current amplitude.
  • 2 June 1875: Bell transmits the sound of a plucked steel reed using electromagnet instruments.
  • 1 July 1875: Bell uses a bi-directional "gallows" telephone that was able to transmit "indistinct but voice-like sounds" rather than clear speech. Both the transmitter and the receiver were identical membrane electromagnet instruments.
  • 1875: Thomas Edison experiments with acoustic telegraphy and, in November, builds an electro-dynamic receiver but does not exploit it.

1876 to 1878

  • 11 February 1876: Elisha Gray invents a liquid transmitter for use with a telephone, but he did not make one.
  • 14 February 1876
    • about 9:30 am: Gray or his lawyer brings Gray's patent caveat for the telephone to the Washington, D.C. Patent Office (a caveat was a notice of intention to file a patent application. It was like a patent application, but without a request for examination, for the purpose of notifying the patent office of a possible invention in process).
    • about 11:30 am: Bell's lawyer brings to the same patent office Bell's patent application for the telephone. Bell's lawyer requests that it be registered immediately in the cash receipts blotter.
    • about 1:30 pm: Approximately two hours later Elisha Gray's patent caveat is registered in the cash blotter. Although his caveat was not a full application, Gray could have converted it into a patent application and contested Bell's priority, but did not do so because of advice from his lawyer and his involvement with acoustic telegraphy. The result was that the patent was awarded to Bell.
  • 7 March 1876: Bell's U.S. Patent, No. 174,465 for the telephone is granted.
  • 10 March 1876: Bell first successfully transmits speech, saying "Mr. Watson, come here! I want to see you!" using a liquid transmitter as described in Gray's caveat, and Bell's own electromagnetic receiver.
  • 16 May 1876: Thomas Edison files first patent application for acoustic telegraphy for which U.S. patent 182,996 was granted 10 October 1876.
  • 25 June 1876: Bell exhibits his telephone at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, where it draws enthusiastic reactions from Emperor Dom Pedro II of Brazil and Lord Kelvin, attracting the attention of the press and resulting in the first announcements of the invention to the general public. Lord Kelvin describes the telephone as "the greatest by far of all the marvels of the electric telegraph".
  • 10 August 1876: Alexander Graham Bell makes the world's first long-distance telephone call, one-way, not reciprocal, over a distance of about 6 miles, between Brantford and Paris, Ontario, Canada.
  • 1876: Hungarian Tivadar Puskás invents the telephone switchboard exchange (later working with Edison).
  • 9 October 1876: Bell makes the first two-way long-distance telephone call between Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts.
  • October 1876: Edison tests his first carbon microphone.
  • 1877: The first experimental Telephone Exchange in Boston.
  • 20 January 1877: Edison "first in transmitting over wires many articulated sentences" using carbon granules as a pressure-sensitive varying resistance under the pressure of a diaphragm.
  • 30 January 1877: Bell's U.S. Patent No. 186,787 is granted for an electromagnetic telephone using permanent magnets, iron diaphragms, and a call bell.
  • 4 March 1877: Emile Berliner invents a microphone based on "loose contact" between two metal electrodes, an improvement on Reis' Telephone, and in April 1877 files a caveat of an invention in process.
  • April 1877: A telephone line connects the workshop of Charles Williams, Jr., located in Boston, to his house in Somerville, Massachusetts, at 109 Court Street in Boston, where Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson had previously experimented with their telephone. The telephones became No. 1 and 2 in the Bell Telephone Company.
  • 27 April 1877: Edison files telephone patent applications. U.S. patents (Nos. 474,230, 474,231 and 474,232) were awarded to Edison in 1892 over the competing claims of Alexander Graham Bell, Emile Berliner, Elisha Gray, Amos Dolbear, J.W. McDonagh, G.B. Richmond, W.L.W. Voeker, J.H. Irwin and Francis Blake Jr. Edison's carbon granules transmitter and Bell's electromagnetic receiver are used, with improvements, by the Bell system for many decades thereafter.
  • 4 June 1877: Emile Berliner files telephone patent application that includes a carbon microphone transmitter.
  • 9 July 1877: The Bell Telephone Company, a common law joint-stock company, is organized by Alexander Graham Bell's future father-in-law Gardiner Greene Hubbard, a lawyer who becomes its first president.
  • 6 October 1877: the Scientific American publishes the invention from Bell – at that time still without a ringer.
  • 25 October 1877: the article in the Scientific American is discussed at the Telegraphenamt in Berlin
  • November 1877: First permanent telephone connection in UK between two business in Manchester using imported Bell instruments.
  • 12 November 1877: The first commercial telephone company enters telephone business in Friedrichsberg close to Berlin using the Siemens pipe as ringer and telephone devices built by Siemens.
  • 1 December 1877: Western Union enters the telephone business using Edison's superior carbon microphone transmitter.
  • 14 January 1878: Bell demonstrates the device to Queen Victoria and gives her an opportunity to try it. Calls are made to Cowes, Southampton and London, the first long-distance calls in the UK. The queen asks to buy the equipment that was used, but Bell offers to make a model specifically for her.
  • 28 January 1878: The first commercial North American telephone exchange is opened in New Haven, Connecticut.
  • 4 February 1878: Edison demonstrates the telephone between Menlo Park, New Jersey and Philadelphia.
  • 14 June 1878: The Telephone Company (Bell's Patents) Ltd. is registered in London. Opened in London on 21 August 1879, it is Europe's first telephone exchange, followed a couple of weeks later by one in Manchester.
  • 12 September 1878: the Bell Telephone Company sues Western Union for infringing Bell's patents.
  • 1878: The first Australian telephone trials were made between Semaphore and Kapunda (and later Adelaide and Port Adelaide) in South Australia.

1879 to 1919

Alexander Graham Bell at the opening of the first New York – Chicago telephone line (October 18, 1892)
  • Early months of 1879: The Bell Telephone Company is near bankruptcy and desperate to get a transmitter to equal Edison's carbon transmitter.
  • 17 February 1879: Bell Telephone merges with the New England Telephone Company to form the National Bell Telephone Company. Theodore Vail takes over operations.
  • 1879: Francis Blake invents a carbon transmitter similar to Edison's that saves the Bell company from extinction.
  • 2 August 1879: The Edison Telephone Company London Ltd, registered. Opened in London 6 September 1879.
  • 10 September 1879: Connolly and McTighe patent a "dial" telephone exchange (limited in the number of lines to the number of positions on the dial.).
  • 1879: The International Bell Telephone Company (IBTC) of Brussels, Belgium was founded by Bell Telephone Company president Gardiner Greene Hubbard, initially to sell imported telephones and switchboards in Continental Europe. International Bell rapidly evolved into an important European telephone service provider and manufacturer, with major operations in several countries.
  • 19 February 1880: The photophone, also called a radiophone, is invented jointly by Alexander Graham Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter at Bell's Volta Laboratory. The device allowed for the transmission of sound on a beam of light.
  • 20 March 1880: National Bell Telephone merges with others to form the American Bell Telephone Company.
  • 1 April 1880: world's first wireless telephone call on Bell and Tainter's photophone (distant precursor to fiber-optic communications) from the Franklin School in Washington, D.C. to the window of Bell's laboratory, 213 meters away.
  • 1 July 1881: The world's first international telephone call is made between St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada, and Calais, Maine, United States.
  • 11 October 1881: The Sydney telephone exchange opened with 12 subscribers.
  • 1882: A telephone company—an American Bell Telephone Company affiliate—is set up in Mexico City.
  • 14 May 1883: The Adelaide exchange was opened, with 48 subscribers.
  • 7 September 1883: The Port Adelaide exchange was opened, with 21 subscribers.
  • 4 September 1884: Opening of telephone service between New York and Boston (235 miles).
  • 3 March 1885: The American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) is incorporated as the long-distance division of American Bell Telephone Company. It will become the head of the Bell System on the last day of 1899.
  • 1886: Gilliland's Automatic circuit changer is put into service between Worcester and Leicester featuring the first operator dialing allowing one operator to run two exchanges.
  • 1887: Tivadar Puskás introduced the multiplex switchboard, that had an epochal significance in the further development of telephone exchange.
  • 13 January 1887: the Government of the United States moves to annul the master patent issued to Alexander Graham Bell on the grounds of fraud and misrepresentation. The case, known as the 'Government Case', is later dropped after it was revealed that the U.S. Attorney General, Augustus Hill Garland had been given millions of dollars of stock in the company trying to unseat Bell's telephone patent.
  • 1888: Telephone patent court cases are confirmed by the Supreme Court, see The Telephone Cases
  • 1889: AT&T becomes the overall holding company for all the Bell companies.
  • 2 November 1889: A.G. Smith patents a telegraph switch which provides for trunks between groups of selectors allowing for the first time, fewer trunks than there are lines, and automatic selection of an idle trunk.
  • 10 March 1891: Almon Strowger patents the Strowger switch the first Automatic telephone exchange.
  • 30 October 1891: The independent Strowger Automatic Telephone Exchange Company is formed.
  • 3 May 1892: Thomas Edison awarded patents for the carbon microphone based on applications lodged in 1877.
  • 18 October 1892: Opening of telephone service between New York and Chicago (950 miles).
  • 3 November 1892: The first Strowger switch goes into operation in LaPorte, Indiana, with 75 subscribers and capacity for 99.
  • 30 January 1894: The second fundamental Bell patent for the telephone expires; Independent telephone companies established, and independent manufacturing companies (Stromberg-Carlson in 1894 and Kellogg Switchboard & Supply Company in 1897).
  • 30 December 1899: American Bell Telephone Company is purchased by its own long-distance subsidiary, American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) to bypass state regulations limiting capitalization. AT&T assumes leadership role of the Bell System.
  • 25 December 1900: John W. Atkins, the manager at International Ocean Telegraph Company (IOTC), a subsidiary of Western Union Telegraph Company made the first international telephone call over telegraph cable at 09:55 from his office in Key West to Havana, Cuba. Atkins was reported in the Florida Times Union and Citizen as saying, "For a long time there was no sound, except the roar heard at night sometimes, caused by electric light current." He continued calling Cuba and finally came back the words, clear and distinct: "I don't understand you."
  • 27 February 1901: United States Court of Appeal declares void Emile Berliner's patent for a telephone transmitter used by the Bell telephone system
  • 1902: The first Australian interstate calls between Mount Gambier and Nelson.
  • 26 February 1914: Boston-Washington underground cable commenced commercial service.
  • 16 January 1915: The first automatic Panel exchange was installed at the Mulberry Central Office in Newark, New Jersey; but was a semi-automatic system using non-dial telephones.
  • 25 January 1915: First transcontinental telephone call (3600 miles), with Thomas Augustus Watson at 333 Grant Avenue in San Francisco receiving a call from Alexander Graham Bell at 15 Dey Street in New York City, facilitated by a newly invented vacuum tube amplifier.
  • 21 October 1915: First transmission of speech across the Atlantic Ocean by radiotelephone from Arlington, Virginia to Paris, France.
  • 1919: The first rotary dial telephones in the Bell System installed in Norfolk, Virginia. Telephones that lacked dials and touch-tone pads were no longer made by the Bell System after 1978.
  • 1919: AT&T conducts more than 4,000 measurements of people's heads to gauge the best dimensions of standard headsets so that callers' lips would be near the microphone when holding handsets up to their ears.

1920 to 1969

  • 16 July 1920: World's first radiotelephone service commences public service between Los Angeles and Santa Catalina Island.
  • 11 April 1921: Opening of deep sea cable from Key West, Florida, to Havana, Cuba (115 miles).
  • 22 December 1923: Opening of second transcontinental telephone line via a southern route.
  • 7 March 1926: First transatlantic telephone call, from London to New York.
  • 7 January 1927: Transatlantic telephone service inaugurated for commercial service (3500 miles).
  • 17 January 1927: Opening of third transcontinental telephone line via a northern route.
  • 7 April 1927: world's first videophone call via an electro-mechanical AT&T unit, from Washington, D.C. to New York City, by then-Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover.
  • 8 December 1929: Opening of commercial ship-to-shore telephone service.
  • 3 April 1930: Opening of transoceanic telephone service to Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay and subsequently to all other South American countries.
  • 1931: The Ericsson DBH 1001 telephone was the first telephone without a separate ringer box.
  • 25 April 1935: First telephone call around the world by wire and radio.
  • 1937: The Western Electric type 302 telephone becomes available for service in the United States.
  • 8 December 1937: Opening of fourth transcontinental telephone line.
  • 1941: Multi-frequency dialing introduced for operators in Baltimore, Maryland
  • 1942: Telephone production is halted at Western Electric until 1945 for civilian distribution due to the retooling of factories for military equipment during World War II.
  • 1946: National Numbering Plan (area codes)
  • 1946: first commercial mobile phone call
  • 1946: Bell Labs develops the germanium point-contact transistor
  • 1947: December, W. Rae Young and Douglas H. Ring, Bell Labs engineers, proposed hexagonal cells for provisioning of mobile telephone service.
  • 1948: Phil Porter, a Bell Labs engineer, proposed that cell towers be at the corners of the hexagons rather than the centers and have directional antennas pointing in 3 directions.
  • 1950: The Western Electric Type 500 telephone becomes available in the United States after announcement in 1949.
  • 30 June 1948: First public demonstration of the transistor by Bell Telephone Laboratories.
  • 10 November 1951: direct distance dialing (DDD) first offered on trial basis at Englewood, New Jersey, to 11 selected major cities across the United States; this service grew rapidly across major cities during the 1950s
  • 1955: the laying of trans-Atlantic cable TAT-1 began – 36 circuits, later increased to 48 by reducing the bandwidth from 4 kHz to 3 kHz
  • 1957: First semiconductor oxiode(silicon dioxide) planar transitors by Frosch and Derick at Bell Labs.
  • 1958: Modems used for direct connection via voice phone lines
  • 1959: The Princess telephone is introduced in the Bell System in the United States.
  • 1959: UKs first public car radio-telephone service opens in Liverpool and Manchester
  • 1959: Following Frosch and Derick research at Bell Labs, Mohamed Atalla and Dawon Kahng proposed a silicon MOS transistor in 1959 at Bell Labs.
  • 1960: A working MOSFET is built by a team at Bell Labs. E. E. LaBate and E. I. Povilonis made the device; M. O. Thurston, L. A. D’Asaro, and J. R. Ligenza developed the diffusion processes, and H. K. Gummel and R. Lindner characterized the device.
  • 1 November 1960: The Bell System begins testing its push-button phone, starting with service in Findlay, Ohio.
  • 1960: Bell Labs conducts extensive field trial of an electronic central office in Morris, Illinois, known at the Morris System.
  • 1960s: Bell Labs developed the electronics for cellular phones
  • 1961: Initiation of Touch-Tone service trials
  • 1962: T-1 service in Skokie, Illinois
  • 18 November 1963: AT&T commences the first subscriber Touch-Tone service in the towns of Carnegie and Greensburg, Pennsylvania, using push-button telephones that replaced rotary dial instruments.
  • 31 May 1965: The world's first electronic switching system commences commercial service in Succasunna, New Jersey, in form of the 1ESS.
  • 1965: first geosynchronous communications satellite – 240 circuits or one TV signal
  • 1965: The Trimline telephone is introduced by Western Electric for use in the Bell System.

1970 to 1999

2000 to present

See also

Notes

  1. McVeigh, Daniel P. An Early History of the Telephone: 1664-1866: Robert Hooke's Acoustic Experiments and Acoustic Inventions (archived from the original on 18 June 2013), Columbia University website. Retrieved 15 January 2013.
  2. Giles, Arthur (editor). County Directory of Scotland (for 1901-1904): Twelfth Issue: Telephone (Scottish Post Office Directories), Edinburgh: R. Grant & Son, 1902, p. 28.
  3. Text of Meucci's Caveat, pages 16-18.
  4. Bruce (1990), pages 144-145.
  5. Hounshell, David A. 1975. "Elisha Gray and the Telephone: On the Disadvantages of Being an Expert", Technology and Culture, 1975, Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 133–161.
  6. "Bell's centennial telephone transmitter, 1876". National Archives UK. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  7. Josephson, p. 143.
  8. John Lossing, Woodrow Wilson. Harpers' Encyclopædia Of United States From 458 A. D. To 1905, Harper & Brothers, 1905. Original from Pennsylvania State University, Digitized: 25 June 2009.
  9. Edison, Thomas A. 1880. The Speaking Telephone Interferences, Evidence for Thomas A. Edison. Vol. 1 (jpg image), .
  10. Josephson, p. 146.
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Bibliography

  • Bourseul, Charles (1854), Transmission électrique de la parole, Paris: L'Illustration, 26 August 1854.(in French)
  • Thompson, Sylvanus P. (1883), Philipp Reis, Inventor of the Telephone, London: E. & F. N. Spon, 1883.
  • Coe, Lewis (1995), The Telephone and Its Several Inventors: A History, North Carolina: McFarland, 1995. ISBN 0-7864-0138-9
  • Baker, Burton H. (2000), The Gray Matter: The Forgotten Story of the Telephone, Telepress, St. Joseph, Michigan, 2000. ISBN 0-615-11329-X
  • Josephson, Matthew (1992), Edison: A Biography, Wiley, ISBN 0-471-54806-5
  • Bruce, Robert V. (1990), Bell: Alexander Bell and the Conquest of Solitude, Cornell University Press, 1990. ISBN 0-8014-9691-8
  • Farley, Tom (2007), "The Cell-Phone Revolution", Invention & Technology, Winter 2007, vol. 22:3, pages 8–19.

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