History of the Telephone (Meaning and Explanation)

We explain the history of the telephone, who was its true inventor, its importance and how it evolved over time.

An old telephone from the early twentieth century sits on a table. — The telephone changed the world of personal communications.

What is the history of the telephone?

The telephone (from the Greek TV“far away”, and phone“sound”) It is a device that allows the simultaneous transmission and reception of sound over long distances through the conversion and reconversion of acoustic waves into electrical signals. It is an invention that changed the world of personal communications and laid the foundations for contemporary information and communications technologies (ICT).

The history of the telephone dates back to the 19th century in a general context of enthusiasm for the invention of new devices, linked to the Industrial Revolution, in which numerous scientists sought to improve or reinvent the recent telegraphy system. The latter had revolutionized the modern world, allowing for the first time rapid communication over great distances.

The invention of the telephone was long involved in controversy, as it was attributed to the American inventor Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922), who was actually the first to patent the invention, and sometimes also to Elisha Gray (1835). -1901), who designed a water telephone in 1876. However, in 2002, the American Congress recognized through its resolution 269 the Italian engineer Antonio Meucci (1808-1889) as the creator of this type of technology.

Who invented the telephone?

Antonio Meucci was the inventor of the telephone — Meucci did not manage to sell his invention, but he did manage to convince himself of the potential he had in his hands.

the phone was born under the name “teletrophone” in 1854, in the workshop of the Italian engineer Antonio Meucci. This inventor had a wife immobilized by rheumatism, and he wanted to build a device that would allow him to communicate with her from his office, on the ground floor of his home, since she was in the rooms on the upper floor. Although he was successful in creating a device like the one he was looking for, At that time he decided not to patent it, because he lacked enough money and preferred to bet on other inventions that he considered more promising and profitable.

However, In 1860 Meucci gave a public demonstration in New York in which she transmitted the voice of a lyrical soprano over a great distance. Although he impressed the audience, Meucci did not manage to sell his invention, but he did manage to convince himself of the potential he had in his hands. So that He opted for a much cheaper preliminary patent procedure, which he was able to renew until 1873.

What was the first telephone?

Graham Bell uses the telephone he made. — The first telephone was still a rudimentary device.

The first telephone formally presented as such was the work of Alexander Graham Bell, at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia USA. There it enjoyed the enthusiasm of important members of European and Brazilian royalty, despite the fact that it was still a rudimentary device, described as a “sound telegraph” or “device capable of transmitting voice by telegraph.”

There was, however, no single technical description of the telephone, but rather they consisted of various devices that operated with different elements. However, The invention of carbon transmitters was the first step towards telephone standardization since they achieved better sound quality.

During the phone's early life, the device in question was much less important than the network to which it could connect. In fact, the first versions of the phone popularized by the American and Canadian governments required direct connection of telephone devices through a telegraph line so they were located on postcards, important government headquarters and other similar places. In a way it operated like a primitive intercom.

This changed in 1876, thanks to the work of the Hungarian Tivadar Puskás (1844-1876), worker in Graham Bell's company, who came up with the possibility of developing a telephone exchange: an interconnection office in which the telegraph lines of a region converge and where an operator will connect the applicants with the appropriate telegraph line.

Telephone evolution

The telephone has undergone many changes since its invention to the mobile phone. — The evolution of the telephone from the 20th century onwards was a dizzying and unpredictable process.

The evolution of the telephone from the 20th century onwards was a dizzying and unpredictable process. Already in 1914, the United States was the leading country in telephone presence among its citizens, the majority of whom used a model 102 telephone from the Bell company, made of plastic, carbon transmitters and electromagnetic receivers.

The model 102 telephones from the Bell company were equipped with their own battery and accompanied by a sound box responsible for alerting about calls.
Instead, Starting in 1930, energy began to be supplied from the plant over the same telephone line and the devices began to have their own bells. Telephones otherwise changed little in the decades that followed, as the network expanded around the world.
Much later, a new innovation occurred: In 1960, rotary dialing on telephones was eliminated and replaced by tone dialing. If the rotating dial operated by partially interrupting the line's electrical current, the tone dialing numeric keypad used different signal frequencies that were recognized by telephone exchanges, already equipped with more sophisticated devices to make the operator's life easier.
This technology opened the doors to a next technological change, which introduced digital telephony thanks to the modulation of electrical pulses and semiconductor technology chips and a whole new approach to the remote transmission of the human voice. Thus, in 1970, various British telephone companies promoted the “phone on a chip,” equipped with storage memory for important numbers.
Finally, The invention and popularization of the computer allowed telephone exchanges to be fully automated and that the transmission was even faster and more efficient.
However, At the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, traditional telephony began its decline facing the era of cell phones, hand in hand with the internet.

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The cell phone

Mobile telephony or cellular telephony was invented in the mid-20th century, but popularized in the late 1990s. It differs from traditional telephony in several aspects:

are wireless. The discovery and perfection of what was once called “wireless telegraphy”, that is, the transmission of data through radio waves, allowed the emergence of new devices equipped with antennas instead of connecting cables. Cell phones, walkie talkies and the radio are examples of this.
are portable. It was initially a telephone equipped with its own cell or specific transmission area, instead of having a single fixed transmitter (hence its name “cell phone”), which allowed the device to be portable, not tethered. to no cables, but rather communicated with the network through electromagnetic (radio) signals.
are smaller in size. Especially since the 2000s, cell phones took advantage of enormous advances in electronics and miniaturization of components, thus reducing their size to fit in a pants pocket. Paradoxically, this process of size reduction would begin to be reversed with the appearance of smartphones, equipped with touch screens.
have an internet connection. From the conjunction between telephones and computers, a new idea of the cell phone had its origin: smartphones or smartphonescapable of connecting to the Internet and allowing the exchange of information.
have other types of accessories. As well as the Internet connection, mobile phones of the latest generations, at the beginning of the 21st century, acquired other functions such as data processing, the camera, the voice and video recorder, among others.

Importance of the telephone

The telephone marked an important technological milestone in contemporary human history. Not only because represented a significant advance in the possibilities of information transmission and telecommunications with respect to telegraphy, but because paved the way for even more complex and sophisticated forms.

On the other hand, telephony It had an enormous impact on commerce, professional relationships and even the way we socialized since it shortened distances and allowed fast, instant communication, which meant the first step towards the accelerated and interconnected world of the Internet.

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