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 Ancient Greek: τῆλε, romanized: tēle, lit. '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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Autovon keypads were one of the few production units to include all 16 DTMF signals. The red keys in the fourth column produce the A, B, C, and D DTMF events.

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.

Touch-Tone dialing with a telephone keypad gradually replaced the use of rotary dials and has become the industry standard in telephony to control automated equipment and signal user intent.Other multi-frequency systems are also used for signaling on trunks in the telephone network. (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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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 1Elisha Gray, 1876, designed a telephone using a water microphone in Highland Park, Illinois. (from History of the telephone)
Image 2The master telephone patent granted to Bell, 174465, March 10, 1876 (from History of the telephone)
Image 3A driver using two handheld mobile phones at once (from Mobile phone)
Image 4A Meizu MX4 with Flyme OS (from Smartphone)
Image 5Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 6Dupuis and Haug during a GSM meeting in Belgium, April 1992 (from Mobile phone)
Image 7Old Receiver schematic, c.1906 (from History of the telephone)
Image 8"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 9The HTC Desire, a 2010 smartphone with optical trackpad and search button (from Smartphone)
Image 10The Nokia 9110 Communicator, opened for access to keyboard (from Smartphone)
Image 11Typical mobile phone mini-SIM card (from Mobile phone)
Image 12The original Apple iPhone; following its introduction the common smartphone form factor shifted to large touchscreen software interfaces without physical keypads (from Smartphone)
Image 13Android smartphones (from Mobile phone)
Image 14A text message (SMS) (from Mobile phone)
Image 15Scrapped mobile phones (from Mobile phone)
Image 16Optical track pad sensor of an HTC Legend, 2010. (from Smartphone)
Image 17Historical marker commemorating the first telephone central office in New York State (1878) (from History of the telephone)
Image 18A high-capacity portable battery charger (power bank) (from Smartphone)
Image 19Several BlackBerry smartphones, which were highly popular in the mid-late 2000s (from Smartphone)
Image 20Top of cellular telephone tower (from History of the telephone)
Image 21The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. In 1983, it became the first commercially available handheld cellular mobile phone. (from Mobile phone)
Image 22IBM Simon and charging base (1994) (from Smartphone)
Image 23Mobile payment system. (from Smartphone)
Image 24A 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 25Mobile phone subscribers per 100 inhabitants. 2014 figure is estimated. (from Mobile phone)
Image 26A Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus, featuring a "hole-punch" camera (from Smartphone)
Image 27Tooltip 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 28Private conversation, 1910 (from History of the telephone)
Image 29Martin 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 30The LG Prada with a large capacitive touchscreen introduced in 2006 (from Smartphone)
Image 31A 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 32Inserted memory and SIM cards (from Smartphone)
Image 33Smartphone with infrared transmitter on top for use as remote control (from Smartphone)
Image 34E-waste in Agbogbloshie (from Smartphone)
Image 35Antonio Meucci's telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 36A Moto G7 Power; its display uses a tall aspect ratio and includes a "notch". (from Smartphone)
Image 37A French Gower telephone of 1912 at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris (from History of the telephone)
Image 38Mobile/desktop convergence: the Librem 5 smartphone can be used as a basic desktop computer (from Smartphone)
Image 39Mobile payment system (from Mobile phone)
Image 40The back of a Huawei P30. It features three rear-facing camera lenses with Leica optics. (from Smartphone)
Image 41Personal Handy-phone System mobiles and modems, 1997–2003 (from Mobile phone)
Image 42A user consulting a mapping app on a phone (from Smartphone)
Image 43Two decades of evolution of mobile phones, from a 1992 Motorola DynaTAC 8000X to the 2014 iPhone 6 Plus (from Mobile phone)
Image 44Philipp Reis, 1861, constructed the first telephone, today called the Reis telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 45Thomas Edison invented the carbon microphone which produced a strong telephone signal. (from History of the telephone)
Image 46Tivadar Puskás proposed the telephone switchboard exchange in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 47A German rotary dial telephone, the W48 (from History of the telephone)
Image 48This 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 49A smartphone displaying the homepage of the English Wikipedia (from Smartphone)
Image 50People using phones while walking (from Mobile phone)
Image 51Cellular networks work by only reusing radio frequencies (in this example frequencies f1-f4) in non adjacent cells to avoid interference (from Mobile phone)
Image 521917 wall telephone, open to show magneto and local battery (from History of the telephone)
Image 53
Bell prototype telephone stamp
Centennial Issue of 1976
(from History of the telephone)
Image 54A 19th century acoustic tin can or "lovers' telephone" (from History of the telephone)
Image 55The 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 56Apple iPhone smartphone (from History of the telephone)
Image 57Antonio Meucci, 1854, constructed telephone-like devices. (from History of the telephone)
Image 58A New York City driver holding two phones (from Smartphone)
Image 59Actor 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 60Active mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants (from Mobile phone)
Image 611896 Telephone (Sweden) (from History of the telephone)
Image 62A smartphone touchscreen (from Smartphone)

Selected biography

Fleet in studio, August, 2008

Pat Trumble Fleet is an American voice actress. Widely recognized for the tens of thousands of recordings she has made for US telephone companies such as AT&T, Verizon, Qwest, the former Bell System companies, and others since 1981, she is still most recognized as the person who says "AT&T" in the company's sound trademark, which played prior to any operator assisted or credit card paid call, and on answer when calling AT&T customer service numbers.

She is also the voice for most "star" services (e.g. last-call return, call blocking, etc.) for AT&T local telephone companies, and the voice heard when making AT&T handled calls through 1-800-CALL-ATT (225-5288) and through international AT&T access numbers such as USADirect. (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 George Sweigert John Draper

Selected images

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

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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