Portal:Telephones

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The Telephones Portal

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.

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 Western Electric Company was an American electrical engineering and manufacturing company that operated from 1869 to 1996. A subsidiary of the AT&T Corporation for most of its lifespan, Western Electric was the primary manufacturer, supplier, and purchasing agent for all telephone equipment the Bell System from 1881 until 1984, when the Bell System was dismantled. Because the Bell System had a near-total monopoly over telephone service in the United States for much of the 20th century, Western Electric's equipment was widespread across the country. The company was responsible for many technological innovations, as well as developments in industrial management. (Full article...)

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Front face of the latest model, the iPhone 15 Pro

The iPhone is a line of smartphones produced by Apple that use Apple's own iOS mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007. Since then, Apple has annually released new iPhone models and iOS updates. As of November 1, 2018, more than 2.2 billion iPhones had been sold.

The iPhone was the first mobile phone to use multi-touch technology. Since the iPhone's launch, it has gained larger screen sizes, video-recording, waterproofing, and many accessibility features. Up to the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, iPhones had a single button on the front panel, with the iPhone 5s and later integrating a Touch ID fingerprint sensor. Since the iPhone X, iPhone models have switched to a nearly bezel-less front screen design with Face ID facial recognition, and app switching activated by gestures. Touch ID is still used for the budget iPhone SE series.

The iPhone is one of the two largest smartphone platforms in the world alongside Android, and is a large part of the luxury market. The iPhone has generated large profits for Apple, making it one of the world's most valuable publicly traded companies. The first-generation iPhone was described as a "revolution" for the mobile phone industry and subsequent models have also garnered praise. The iPhone has been credited with popularizing the smartphone and slate form factor, and with creating a large market for smartphone apps, or "app economy". , Apple's App Store contained more than 2.2 million applications for the iPhone. (Full article...)

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Example of a North American dial tone

Listen to a dial tone from North America of 350 Hz + 440 Hz.

Example of a UK/British dial tone

Listen to a dial tone from the United Kingdom of 350 Hz + 450 Hz.

Example of a current European dial tone

Listen to a European dial tone of 425 Hz

Example of a French dial tone

Listen to a French dial tone of 440 Hz

Example of a Japanese dial tone

Listen to a Japanese dial tone of 400 Hz

Problems playing these files? See media help.

A dial tone (dialling tone in the UK) is a telephony signal sent by a telephone exchange or private branch exchange (PBX) to a terminating device, such as a telephone, when an off-hook condition is detected. It indicates that the exchange is working and is ready to initiate a telephone call. The tone stops when the first dialed digit is recognized. If no digits are forthcoming, the partial dial procedure is invoked, often eliciting a special information tone and an intercept message, followed by the off-hook tone, requiring the caller to hang up and redial. (Full article...)

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

Image 1Antonio Meucci, 1854, constructed telephone-like devices. (from History of the telephone)
Image 21917 wall telephone, open to show magneto and local battery (from History of the telephone)
Image 3A text message (SMS) (from Mobile phone)
Image 4Actor 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 5Tivadar Puskás proposed the telephone switchboard exchange in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 6Tooltip 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 7Old Receiver schematic, c.1906 (from History of the telephone)
Image 8The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. In 1983, it became the first commercially available handheld cellular mobile phone. (from Mobile phone)
Image 9People using phones while walking (from Mobile phone)
Image 10Mobile payment system (from Mobile phone)
Image 11The original Apple iPhone; following its introduction the common smartphone form factor shifted to large touchscreen software interfaces without physical keypads (from Smartphone)
Image 12The master telephone patent granted to Bell, 174465, March 10, 1876 (from History of the telephone)
Image 13The HTC Desire, a 2010 smartphone with optical trackpad and search button (from Smartphone)
Image 14Dupuis and Haug during a GSM meeting in Belgium, April 1992 (from Mobile phone)
Image 15Personal Handy-phone System mobiles and modems, 1997–2003 (from Mobile phone)
Image 16A Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus, featuring a "hole-punch" camera (from Smartphone)
Image 17Top of cellular telephone tower (from History of the telephone)
Image 18A user consulting a mapping app on a phone (from Smartphone)
Image 19Apple iPhone smartphone (from History of the telephone)
Image 20Thomas Edison invented the carbon microphone which produced a strong telephone signal. (from History of the telephone)
Image 21A Moto G7 Power; its display uses a tall aspect ratio and includes a "notch". (from Smartphone)
Image 22Android smartphones (from Mobile phone)
Image 23Elisha Gray, 1876, designed a telephone using a water microphone in Highland Park, Illinois. (from History of the telephone)
Image 24A German rotary dial telephone, the W48 (from History of the telephone)
Image 25A Meizu MX4 with Flyme OS (from Smartphone)
Image 26Martin 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 27A 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 28A New York City driver holding two phones (from Smartphone)
Image 29Cellular networks work by only reusing radio frequencies (in this example frequencies f1-f4) in non adjacent cells to avoid interference (from Mobile phone)
Image 30IBM Simon and charging base (1994) (from Smartphone)
Image 31Mobile/desktop convergence: the Librem 5 smartphone can be used as a basic desktop computer (from Smartphone)
Image 32A smartphone touchscreen (from Smartphone)
Image 33
Bell prototype telephone stamp
Centennial Issue of 1976
(from History of the telephone)
Image 34Inserted memory and SIM cards (from Smartphone)
Image 35Mobile phone subscribers per 100 inhabitants. 2014 figure is estimated. (from Mobile phone)
Image 36Several BlackBerry smartphones, which were highly popular in the mid-late 2000s (from Smartphone)
Image 37Antonio Meucci's telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 38A driver using two handheld mobile phones at once (from Mobile phone)
Image 39Two decades of evolution of mobile phones, from a 1992 Motorola 8900X-2 to the 2014 iPhone 6 Plus (from Mobile phone)
Image 40Smartphone with infrared transmitter on top for use as remote control (from Smartphone)
Image 41A French Gower telephone of 1912 at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris (from History of the telephone)
Image 42This 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 43Scrapped mobile phones (from Mobile phone)
Image 44A smartphone displaying the homepage of the English Wikipedia (from Smartphone)
Image 45Private conversation, 1910 (from History of the telephone)
Image 46"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 47E-waste in Agbogbloshie (from Smartphone)
Image 48A 19th century acoustic tin can or "lovers' telephone" (from History of the telephone)
Image 491896 Telephone (Sweden) (from History of the telephone)
Image 50A high-capacity portable battery charger (power bank) (from Smartphone)
Image 51The 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 52Active mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants (from Mobile phone)
Image 53Historical marker commemorating the first telephone central office in New York State (1878) (from History of the telephone)
Image 54Typical mobile phone mini-SIM card (from Mobile phone)
Image 55The back of a Huawei P30. It features three rear-facing camera lenses with Leica optics. (from Smartphone)
Image 56The Nokia 9110 Communicator, opened for access to keyboard (from Smartphone)
Image 57Optical track pad sensor of an HTC Legend, 2010. (from Smartphone)
Image 58Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 59Philipp Reis, 1861, constructed the first telephone, today called the Reis telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 60The LG Prada with a large capacitive touchscreen introduced in 2006 (from Smartphone)
Image 61A 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 62Mobile payment system. (from Smartphone)

Selected biography

Douglas H. Ring (March 28, 1907 in Montana – September 8, 2000 in Red Bank, New Jersey) was one of the Bell Labs engineers that invented the cell phone. The history of cellular phone technology began on December 11, 1947 with an internal memo written by Douglas H. Ring in which he proposed development of a cellular telephone system by AT&T.

Although Martin Cooper of Motorola is considered the inventor of the first handheld cellular telephone and the first person to demonstrate to reporters a handheld cell phone call, Cooper's April 1973 call used cellular telephone technology invented and developed by Bell Labs engineers. (Full article...)

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

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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