Portal:Telephones

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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. Nowadays, phones are almost always in the form of smartphones or mobile phones, due to technological convergence.

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 Telephone Company was the initial corporate entity from which the Bell System originated to build a continental conglomerate and monopoly in telecommunication services in the United States and Canada.

The company was organized in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 9, 1877, by Alexander Graham Bell's father-in-law Gardiner Greene Hubbard, who also helped organize the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company. A common law joint-stock company, the Bell Telephone Company was started on the basis of holding "potentially valuable patents", principally Bell's master telephone patent #174465. Upon inception, Hubbard was installed as trustee, although he was additionally the company's de facto president, since he also controlled his daughter's shares by power of attorney. Thomas Sanders, its principal financial backer, was treasurer.

Bell Telephone and New England Telephone merged on February 17, 1879, to form two new entities, the National Bell Telephone Company of Boston, and the International Bell Telephone Company. International Bell became headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. Theodore Vail took over its operations, becoming a central figure in its rapid growth and commercial success. (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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DTMF dialing

audio output of a DTMF signal.

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Dual-tone multi-frequency signaling (DTMF) is a telecommunication signaling system using the voice-frequency band over telephone lines between telephone equipment and other communications devices and switching centers. DTMF was first developed in the Bell System in the United States, and became known under the trademark Touch-Tone for use in push-button telephones supplied to telephone customers, starting in 1963. DTMF is standardized as ITU-T Recommendation Q.23. It is also known in the UK as MF4. (Full article...)

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

Image 1Old Receiver schematic, c.1906 (from History of the telephone)
Image 2A driver using two handheld mobile phones at once (from Mobile phone)
Image 31917 wall telephone, open to show magneto and local battery (from History of the telephone)
Image 4A 19th century acoustic tin can or "lovers' telephone" (from History of the telephone)
Image 5The 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 6"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 7A high-capacity portable battery charger (power bank) (from Smartphone)
Image 8Thomas Edison invented the carbon microphone which produced a strong telephone signal. (from History of the telephone)
Image 9A New York City driver holding two phones (from Smartphone)
Image 10Actor 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 11The back of a Huawei P30. It features three rear-facing camera lenses with Leica optics. (from Smartphone)
Image 12Personal Handy-phone System mobiles and modems, 1997–2003 (from Mobile phone)
Image 13Elisha Gray, 1876, designed a telephone using a water microphone in Highland Park, Illinois. (from History of the telephone)
Image 14IBM Simon and charging base (1994) (from Smartphone)
Image 15Antonio Meucci, 1854, constructed telephone-like devices. (from History of the telephone)
Image 16Dupuis and Haug during a GSM meeting in Belgium, April 1992 (from Mobile phone)
Image 17A Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus, featuring a "hole-punch" camera (from Smartphone)
Image 18Mobile payment system. (from Smartphone)
Image 19Android smartphones (from Mobile phone)
Image 20The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. In 1983, it became the first commercially available handheld cellular mobile phone. (from Mobile phone)
Image 21The original Apple iPhone; following its introduction the common smartphone form factor shifted to large touchscreen software interfaces without physical keypads (from Smartphone)
Image 22Philipp Reis, 1861, constructed the first telephone, today called the Reis telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 23People using phones while walking (from Mobile phone)
Image 24Mobile payment system (from Mobile phone)
Image 25Antonio Meucci's telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 26A Moto G7 Power; its display uses a tall aspect ratio and includes a "notch". (from Smartphone)
Image 27A smartphone displaying the homepage of the English Wikipedia (from Smartphone)
Image 28Martin 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 29Tivadar Puskás proposed the telephone switchboard exchange in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 30The LG Prada with a large capacitive touchscreen introduced in 2006 (from Smartphone)
Image 31Two decades of evolution of mobile phones, from a 1992 Motorola 8900X-2 to the 2014 iPhone 6 Plus (from Mobile phone)
Image 32Scrapped mobile phones (from Mobile phone)
Image 33Top of cellular telephone tower (from History of the telephone)
Image 34Cellular networks work by only reusing radio frequencies (in this example frequencies f1-f4) in non adjacent cells to avoid interference (from Mobile phone)
Image 35A text message (SMS) (from Mobile phone)
Image 36Historical marker commemorating the first telephone central office in New York State (1878) (from History of the telephone)
Image 37Private conversation, 1910 (from History of the telephone)
Image 38The HTC Desire, a 2010 smartphone with optical trackpad and search button (from Smartphone)
Image 39Apple iPhone smartphone (from History of the telephone)
Image 40Inserted memory and SIM cards (from Smartphone)
Image 41A user consulting a mapping app on a phone (from Smartphone)
Image 42
Bell prototype telephone stamp
Centennial Issue of 1976
(from History of the telephone)
Image 43A 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 44Smartphone with infrared transmitter on top for use as remote control (from Smartphone)
Image 45A French Gower telephone of 1912 at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris (from History of the telephone)
Image 46A smartphone touchscreen (from Smartphone)
Image 47A Meizu MX4 with Flyme OS (from Smartphone)
Image 48Typical mobile phone mini-SIM card (from Mobile phone)
Image 49Mobile phone subscribers per 100 inhabitants. 2014 figure is estimated. (from Mobile phone)
Image 50The Nokia 9110 Communicator, opened for access to keyboard (from Smartphone)
Image 51This 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 52A 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 53Active mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants (from Mobile phone)
Image 54Optical track pad sensor of an HTC Legend, 2010. (from Smartphone)
Image 551896 Telephone (Sweden) (from History of the telephone)
Image 56Several BlackBerry smartphones, which were highly popular in the mid-late 2000s (from Smartphone)
Image 57Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 58A German rotary dial telephone, the W48 (from History of the telephone)
Image 59Mobile/desktop convergence: the Librem 5 smartphone can be used as a basic desktop computer (from Smartphone)
Image 60The master telephone patent granted to Bell, 174465, March 10, 1876 (from History of the telephone)
Image 61E-waste in Agbogbloshie (from Smartphone)
Image 62Tooltip 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)

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"A shirt pocket phone to call anyone in the world, at any time" - George Harry Sweigert, The Plain Dealer (June 1966)

George H. Sweigert (1920–1999) is credited as the first inventor to patent the cordless telephone.

Born in Akron, Ohio, Sweigert served five years in the US Army as a radio operator in World War II in Guadalcanal, Bougainville, Fiji and New Georgia assigned to the 145th Headquarters Company under the 37th Infantry Division (United States). Following the war, Sweigert attended Bowling Green State University near Toledo, Ohio.

Sweigert credited his military experience for invention of the cordless telephone, citing experimentation with various antennas, signal frequencies, and types of radios. (Full article...)

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

Selected images

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

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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