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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A telephone switchboard was a device used to connect circuits of telephones to establish telephone calls between users or other switchboards, throughout the 20th century. The switchboard was an essential component of a manual telephone exchange, and was operated by switchboard operators who used electrical cords or switches to establish the connections.

The electromechanical automatic telephone exchange, invented by Almon Strowger in 1888, gradually replaced manual switchboards in central telephone exchanges around the world. In 1919, the Bell System in Canada also adopted automatic switching as its future technology, after years of reliance on manual systems.

Nevertheless, many manual branch exchanges remained operational into the second half of the 20th century in many enterprises. Later electronic devices and computer technology gave the operator access to an abundance of features. A private branch exchange (PBX) in a business usually has an attendant console, or an auto-attendant function, which bypasses the operator. (Full article...)

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A courtesy telephone is a telephone located in airport terminals, large train stations, hotel lobbies, and other places where many travellers are expected, which is used to relay messages to a specific person.

It is typically used in connection with a public address system announcement of the style "Gwen Cooper, please pick up the nearest white courtesy telephone." Courtesy telephones may have a distinctive color, which is traditionally white in US airports, and most have no dialing capabilities but rather are simple ringdown stations to reach an operator or other fixed number. Some double as emergency telephones, having buttons by which a user can distinguish between emergency use and inquiry.

Customers can use a courtesy phone to seek information, such as where to find further transport or a person trying to meet them. Some courtesy phones provide a direct line to a number of advertised businesses, such as motels or taxis. They may be located near baggage claim, ticketing areas, and security checkpoints. (Full article...)

List of phone types
Payphone Emergency telephone Secure telephone Smartphone Mobile phone 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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Reproduction of an IOS phone disconnect tone (not the original audio)

A disconnect tone in telephony is a tone provided to the remaining party to a call after the remote party hangs up. Typically, the disconnect tone is a few cycles of the reorder or busy tone (e.g. in US), or between five and fifteen seconds of the Number Unobtainable tone (e.g. in UK). (Full article...)

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

Image 1Optical track pad sensor of an HTC Legend, 2010. (from Smartphone)
Image 2Personal Handy-phone System mobiles and modems, 1997–2003 (from Mobile phone)
Image 3Martin 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 4Antonio Meucci's telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 5"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 6Active mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants (from Mobile phone)
Image 7A Moto G7 Power; its display uses a tall aspect ratio and includes a "notch". (from Smartphone)
Image 8Private conversation, 1910 (from History of the telephone)
Image 9Modern Apple iPhone. This phone is considered a smartphone (from History of the telephone)
Image 10Two decades of evolution of mobile phones, from a 1992 Motorola 8900X-2 to the 2014 iPhone 6 Plus (from Mobile phone)
Image 11A smartphone displaying the homepage of the English Wikipedia (from Smartphone)
Image 12Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 13E-waste in Agbogbloshie (from Smartphone)
Image 14The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. In 1983, it became the first commercially available handheld cellular mobile phone. (from Mobile phone)
Image 15A New York City driver holding two phones (from Smartphone)
Image 16A Meizu MX4 with Flyme OS (from Smartphone)
Image 17Elisha Gray, 1876, designed a telephone using a water microphone in Highland Park, Illinois. (from History of the telephone)
Image 18A 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 19The LG Prada with a large capacitive touchscreen introduced in 2006 (from Smartphone)
Image 20This 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 21The 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 22Mobile payment system (from Mobile phone)
Image 23Actor 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 24Tooltip 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)
Image 25Typical mobile phone mini-SIM card (from Mobile phone)
Image 26A 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 27Inserted memory and SIM cards (from Smartphone)
Image 28Cellular networks work by only reusing radio frequencies (in this example frequencies f1-f4) in non adjacent cells to avoid interference (from Mobile phone)
Image 29The original Apple iPhone; following its introduction the common smartphone form factor shifted to large touchscreen software interfaces without physical keypads (from Smartphone)
Image 30People using phones while walking (from Mobile phone)
Image 31Old Receiver schematic, c.1906 (from History of the telephone)
Image 32Dupuis and Haug during a GSM meeting in Belgium, April 1992 (from Mobile phone)
Image 33Scrapped mobile phones (from Mobile phone)
Image 34Mobile/desktop convergence: the Librem 5 smartphone can be used as a basic desktop computer (from Smartphone)
Image 35Android smartphones (from Mobile phone)
Image 36A 19th century acoustic tin can or "lovers' telephone" (from History of the telephone)
Image 37A text message (SMS) (from Mobile phone)
Image 38Mobile payment system. (from Smartphone)
Image 39A German rotary dial telephone, the W48 (from History of the telephone)
Image 40A French Gower telephone of 1912 at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris (from History of the telephone)
Image 41Smartphone with infrared transmitter on top for use as remote control (from Smartphone)
Image 42A Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus, featuring a "hole-punch" camera (from Smartphone)
Image 43Antonio Meucci, 1854, constructed telephone-like devices. (from History of the telephone)
Image 44Historical marker commemorating the first telephone central office in New York State (1878) (from History of the telephone)
Image 45Thomas Edison invented the carbon microphone which produced a strong telephone signal. (from History of the telephone)
Image 461896 Telephone (Sweden) (from History of the telephone)
Image 47Top of cellular telephone tower (from History of the telephone)
Image 48Mobile phone subscribers per 100 inhabitants. 2014 figure is estimated. (from Mobile phone)
Image 49Tivadar Puskás proposed the telephone switchboard exchange in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 50A driver using two handheld mobile phones at once (from Mobile phone)
Image 51IBM Simon and charging base (1994) (from Smartphone)
Image 52Several BlackBerry smartphones, which were highly popular in the mid-late 2000s (from Smartphone)
Image 53The master telephone patent granted to Bell, 174465, March 10, 1876 (from History of the telephone)
Image 54The Nokia 9110 Communicator, opened for access to keyboard (from Smartphone)
Image 55A smartphone touchscreen (from Smartphone)
Image 56The back of a Huawei P30. It features three rear-facing camera lenses with Leica optics. (from Smartphone)
Image 57Philipp Reis, 1861, constructed the first telephone, today called the Reis telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 58The HTC Desire, a 2010 smartphone with optical trackpad and search button (from Smartphone)
Image 59
Bell prototype telephone stamp
Centennial Issue of 1976
(from History of the telephone)
Image 601917 wall telephone, open to show magneto and local battery (from History of the telephone)
Image 61A user consulting a mapping app on a phone (from Smartphone)
Image 62A high-capacity portable battery charger (power bank) (from Smartphone)

Selected biography

Charles Bourseul (28 April 1829 – 23 November 1912) was a pioneer in development of the "make and break" telephone about 20 years before Bell made a practical telephone.

Bourseul was born in Brussels, Belgium, and grew up in Douai, France. His father was a French army officer. Charles worked for the telegraph company as a civil engineer and mechanic. He made improvements to the telegraph system of L. F. Breguet (a French instrument maker) and Samuel F. B. Morse. Charles Bourseul experimented with the electrical transmission of the human voice and developed an electromagnetic microphone, but his telephone receiver was unable to convert electric current back into clear human voice sounds.

In 1854 Bourseul wrote a memorandum on the transmission of the human voice by electric currents that was first published in a magazine L'Illustration (Paris), though no prototype was built. That is about the same time that Meucci later claimed to have created his first attempt at the telephone in the United States of America. (Full article...)

List of selected biographies
Alexander Graham Bell Thomas Edison Innocenzo Manzetti 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 George Sweigert Pat Fleet John Draper

Selected images

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

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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