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 robocall is a phone call that uses a computerized autodialer to deliver a pre-recorded message, as if from a robot. Robocalls are often associated with political and telemarketing phone campaigns, but can also be used for public service, emergency announcements, or scammers. Multiple businesses and telemarketing companies use auto-dialing software to deliver prerecorded messages (appointment reminders, booking details, etc.) to millions of users. Some robocalls use personalized audio messages to simulate an actual personal phone call. The service is also viewed as prone to association with scams.

phone companies may, by default, block incoming robocalls. (Full article...)

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Mobile radio telephone systems were mobile telephony systems that preceded modern cellular network technology. Since they were the predecessors of the first generation of cellular telephones, these systems are sometimes retroactively referred to as pre-cellular (or sometimes zero generation, that is, 0G) systems. Technologies used in pre-cellular systems included the Push-to-talk (PTT or manual), Mobile Telephone Service (MTS), Improved Mobile Telephone Service (IMTS), and Advanced Mobile Telephone System (AMTS) systems. These early mobile telephone systems can be distinguished from earlier closed radiotelephone systems in that they were available as a commercial service that was part of the public switched telephone network, with their own telephone numbers, rather than part of a closed network such as a police radio or taxi dispatching system.

These mobile telephones were usually mounted in cars or trucks (thus called car phones), although portable briefcase models were also made. Typically, the transceiver (transmitter-receiver) was mounted in the vehicle trunk and attached to the "head" (dial, display, and handset) mounted near the driver seat.

They were sold through WCCs (Wireline Common Carriers, a.k.a. telephone companies), RCCs (Radio Common Carriers), and two-way radio dealers. (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 Grillo telephone Golden telephone Reis telephone Cordless telephone Shoe phone Field telephone IBM Simon Foldable smartphone Modular smartphone Prepaid mobile phone

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DTMF dialing

audio output of a DTMF signal.

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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. (Full article...)

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

Image 1E-waste in Agbogbloshie (from Smartphone)
Image 2"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 3The Nokia 9110 Communicator, opened for access to keyboard (from Smartphone)
Image 4Personal Handy-phone System mobiles and modems, 1997–2003 (from Mobile phone)
Image 5Cellular networks work by only reusing radio frequencies (in this example frequencies f1-f4) in non adjacent cells to avoid interference (from Mobile phone)
Image 6The HTC Desire, a 2010 smartphone with optical trackpad and search button (from Smartphone)
Image 7The LG Prada with a large capacitive touchscreen introduced in 2006 (from Smartphone)
Image 8A smartphone displaying the homepage of the English Wikipedia (from Smartphone)
Image 9The master telephone patent granted to Bell, 174465, March 10, 1876 (from History of the telephone)
Image 10A 19th century acoustic tin can or "lovers' telephone" (from History of the telephone)
Image 11Martin 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 12The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. In 1983, it became the first commercially available handheld cellular mobile phone. (from Mobile phone)
Image 13A New York City driver holding two phones (from Smartphone)
Image 14Tooltip 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 15A driver using two handheld mobile phones at once (from Mobile phone)
Image 16Tivadar Puskás proposed the telephone switchboard exchange in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 17A user consulting a mapping app on a phone (from Smartphone)
Image 18Android smartphones (from Mobile phone)
Image 19People using phones while walking (from Mobile phone)
Image 20Top of cellular telephone tower (from History of the telephone)
Image 21Private conversation, 1910 (from History of the telephone)
Image 22A Meizu MX4 with Flyme OS (from Smartphone)
Image 23The original Apple iPhone; following its introduction the common smartphone form factor shifted to large touchscreen software interfaces without physical keypads (from Smartphone)
Image 24Philipp Reis, 1861, constructed the first telephone, today called the Reis telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 25Mobile phone subscribers per 100 inhabitants. 2014 figure is estimated. (from Mobile phone)
Image 26A Moto G7 Power; its display uses a tall aspect ratio and includes a "notch". (from Smartphone)
Image 27Active mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants (from Mobile phone)
Image 28Thomas Edison invented the carbon microphone which produced a strong telephone signal. (from History of the telephone)
Image 29Apple iPhone smartphone (from History of the telephone)
Image 30A 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 31Historical marker commemorating the first telephone central office in New York State (1878) (from History of the telephone)
Image 32The back of a Huawei P30. It features three rear-facing camera lenses with Leica optics. (from Smartphone)
Image 33A German rotary dial telephone, the W48 (from History of the telephone)
Image 341896 Telephone (Sweden) (from History of the telephone)
Image 35Several BlackBerry smartphones, which were highly popular in the mid-late 2000s (from Smartphone)
Image 361917 wall telephone, open to show magneto and local battery (from History of the telephone)
Image 37Inserted memory and SIM cards (from Smartphone)
Image 38Two decades of evolution of mobile phones, from a 1992 Motorola 8900X-2 to the 2014 iPhone 6 Plus (from Mobile phone)
Image 39Actor 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 40
Bell prototype telephone stamp
Centennial Issue of 1976
(from History of the telephone)
Image 41Mobile payment system (from Mobile phone)
Image 42A 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 43Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 44A text message (SMS) (from Mobile phone)
Image 45Typical mobile phone mini-SIM card (from Mobile phone)
Image 46Mobile payment system. (from Smartphone)
Image 47Mobile/desktop convergence: the Librem 5 smartphone can be used as a basic desktop computer (from Smartphone)
Image 48Dupuis and Haug during a GSM meeting in Belgium, April 1992 (from Mobile phone)
Image 49A Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus, featuring a "hole-punch" camera (from Smartphone)
Image 50This 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 51Scrapped mobile phones (from Mobile phone)
Image 52Old Receiver schematic, c.1906 (from History of the telephone)
Image 53Smartphone with infrared transmitter on top for use as remote control (from Smartphone)
Image 54A high-capacity portable battery charger (power bank) (from Smartphone)
Image 55Optical track pad sensor of an HTC Legend, 2010. (from Smartphone)
Image 56A French Gower telephone of 1912 at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris (from History of the telephone)
Image 57A smartphone touchscreen (from Smartphone)
Image 58Antonio Meucci's telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 59Antonio Meucci, 1854, constructed telephone-like devices. (from History of the telephone)
Image 60IBM Simon and charging base (1994) (from Smartphone)
Image 61Elisha Gray, 1876, designed a telephone using a water microphone in Highland Park, Illinois. (from History of the telephone)
Image 62The 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)

Selected biography

Elisha Gray (August 2, 1835 – January 21, 1901) was an American electrical engineer who co-founded the Western Electric Manufacturing Company. Gray is best known for his development of a telephone prototype in 1876 in Highland Park, Illinois. Some recent authors have argued that Gray should be considered the true inventor of the telephone because Alexander Graham Bell allegedly stole the idea of the liquid transmitter from him. Although Gray had been using liquid transmitters in his telephone experiments for more than two years previously, Bell's telephone patent was upheld in numerous court decisions.

Gray is also considered to be the father of the modern music synthesizer, and was granted over 70 patents for his inventions. He was one of the founders of Graybar, purchasing a controlling interest in the company shortly after its inception. (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 George Sweigert Pat Fleet John Draper

Selected images

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

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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