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.

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 DynaTAC 8000X; the first commercially available mobile phone from 1983.

The DynaTAC is a series of cellular telephones manufactured by Motorola from 1983 to 1994. The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X received approval from the U.S. FCC on September 21, 1983. A full charge took roughly 10 hours, and it offered 30 minutes of talk time. It also offered an LED display for dialing or recall of one of 30 phone numbers. It was priced at $3,995 in 1984, its commercial release year, equivalent to $11,716 in 2023. DynaTAC was an abbreviation of "Dynamic Adaptive Total Area Coverage".

Several models followed, starting in 1985 with the 8000s and continuing with periodic updates of increasing frequency until 1993's Classic II. The DynaTAC was replaced in most roles by the much smaller Motorola MicroTAC when it was first introduced in 1989, and by the time of the Motorola StarTAC's release in 1996, it was obsolete. (Full article...)

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Grillo telephone designed by Richard Sapper and Marco Zanuso

The Grillo telephone is a 1960s flip phone telephone from Italy. It was designed by Richard Sapper and Marco Zanuso, and introduced in 1967. The "Grillo" was manufactured by Italtel, a subsidiary former state-owned telecommunications company SIP (now part of Telecom Italia), and remained in production until 1979. It was a popular and iconic symbol of 1960s Italian design. (Full article...)

List of phone types
Payphone Courtesy telephone 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 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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Example of a North American Off-hook tone

Listen to an off-hook tone from North America.

High Tone

Some central office switches in the United States, notably older GTD-5 EAX systems, utilize a single frequency tone, 480 Hz, known as High Tone for this purpose. Listen to an older 480Hz off-hook tone.

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The off-hook tone (also off-hook warning, howling tone, or howler tone) is a telephony signal for alerting a user that the telephone has been left off-hook without use for an extended period, effectively disabling the telephone line. (Full article...)

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

Image 1Mobile/desktop convergence: the Librem 5 smartphone can be used as a basic desktop computer (from Smartphone)
Image 2Tivadar Puskás proposed the telephone switchboard exchange in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 3The original Apple iPhone; following its introduction the common smartphone form factor shifted to large touchscreen software interfaces without physical keypads (from Smartphone)
Image 4"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 5A user consulting a mapping app on a phone (from Smartphone)
Image 6
Bell prototype telephone stamp
Centennial Issue of 1976
(from History of the telephone)
Image 7A French Gower telephone of 1912 at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris (from History of the telephone)
Image 8The master telephone patent granted to Bell, 174465, March 10, 1876 (from History of the telephone)
Image 9Elisha Gray, 1876, designed a telephone using a water microphone in Highland Park, Illinois. (from History of the telephone)
Image 10Several BlackBerry smartphones, which were highly popular in the mid-late 2000s (from Smartphone)
Image 11Android smartphones (from Mobile phone)
Image 12A text message (SMS) (from Mobile phone)
Image 13Antonio Meucci, 1854, constructed telephone-like devices. (from History of the telephone)
Image 14Personal Handy-phone System mobiles and modems, 1997–2003 (from Mobile phone)
Image 15Inserted memory and SIM cards (from Smartphone)
Image 16Actor 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 17Historical marker commemorating the first telephone central office in New York State (1878) (from History of the telephone)
Image 18The LG Prada with a large capacitive touchscreen introduced in 2006 (from Smartphone)
Image 19A 19th century acoustic tin can or "lovers' telephone" (from History of the telephone)
Image 20Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 21Mobile payment system (from Mobile phone)
Image 22IBM Simon and charging base (1994) (from Smartphone)
Image 23Apple iPhone smartphone (from History of the telephone)
Image 241917 wall telephone, open to show magneto and local battery (from History of the telephone)
Image 25Dupuis and Haug during a GSM meeting in Belgium, April 1992 (from Mobile phone)
Image 26The HTC Desire, a 2010 smartphone with optical trackpad and search button (from Smartphone)
Image 27Smartphone with infrared transmitter on top for use as remote control (from Smartphone)
Image 28Scrapped mobile phones (from Mobile phone)
Image 29This 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 30A Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus, featuring a "hole-punch" camera (from Smartphone)
Image 31Cellular networks work by only reusing radio frequencies (in this example frequencies f1-f4) in non adjacent cells to avoid interference (from Mobile phone)
Image 32A New York City driver holding two phones (from Smartphone)
Image 33People using phones while walking (from Mobile phone)
Image 34A smartphone touchscreen (from Smartphone)
Image 35Typical mobile phone mini-SIM card (from Mobile phone)
Image 36Optical track pad sensor of an HTC Legend, 2010. (from Smartphone)
Image 37E-waste in Agbogbloshie (from Smartphone)
Image 38The 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 39Tooltip 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 40Active mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants (from Mobile phone)
Image 41The back of a Huawei P30. It features three rear-facing camera lenses with Leica optics. (from Smartphone)
Image 42The Nokia 9110 Communicator, opened for access to keyboard (from Smartphone)
Image 43The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. In 1983, it became the first commercially available handheld cellular mobile phone. (from Mobile phone)
Image 44Antonio Meucci's telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 45A driver using two handheld mobile phones at once (from Mobile phone)
Image 46A 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 47A high-capacity portable battery charger (power bank) (from Smartphone)
Image 48Thomas Edison invented the carbon microphone which produced a strong telephone signal. (from History of the telephone)
Image 49Mobile phone subscribers per 100 inhabitants. 2014 figure is estimated. (from Mobile phone)
Image 50Martin 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 51A smartphone displaying the homepage of the English Wikipedia (from Smartphone)
Image 52Old Receiver schematic, c.1906 (from History of the telephone)
Image 53Top of cellular telephone tower (from History of the telephone)
Image 54A 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 55A Moto G7 Power; its display uses a tall aspect ratio and includes a "notch". (from Smartphone)
Image 56Private conversation, 1910 (from History of the telephone)
Image 57A German rotary dial telephone, the W48 (from History of the telephone)
Image 581896 Telephone (Sweden) (from History of the telephone)
Image 59Philipp Reis, 1861, constructed the first telephone, today called the Reis telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 60A Meizu MX4 with Flyme OS (from Smartphone)
Image 61Two decades of evolution of mobile phones, from a 1992 Motorola 8900X-2 to the 2014 iPhone 6 Plus (from Mobile phone)
Image 62Mobile payment system. (from Smartphone)

Selected biography

Cooper in 2007

Martin Cooper (born December 26, 1928) is an American engineer. He is a pioneer in the wireless communications industry, especially in radio spectrum management, with eleven patents in the field.

On April 3, 1973, he placed the first public call from a handheld portable cell phone while working at Motorola, from a Manhattan sidewalk to his counterpart at competitor Bell Labs. Cooper reprised the first handheld cellular mobile phone (distinct from the car phone) in 1973 and led the team that re-developed it and brought it to market in 1983. He is considered the "father of the (handheld) cell phone".

Cooper is co-founder of numerous communications companies with his wife and business partner Arlene Harris; He is co-founder and current Chairman of Dyna LLC, in Del Mar, California. Cooper also sits on committees supporting the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and the United States Department of Commerce. (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 Thomas Cowherd Gardiner Greene Hubbard Anthony Pollok Thomas A. Watson Elisha Gray George Sweigert Pat Fleet John Draper

Selected images

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

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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