Portal:Telephones

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The Telephones Portal

A telephone, colloquially referred to as a phone, 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.

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 cell phone 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 public switched telephone network (PSTN) is the aggregate of the world's telephone networks that are operated by national, regional, or local telephony operators. It provides infrastructure and services for public telephony. The PSTN consists of telephone lines, fiber-optic cables, microwave transmission links, cellular networks, communications satellites, and undersea telephone cables interconnected by switching centers, such as central offices, network tandems, and international gateways, which allow telephone users to communicate with each other.

Originally a network of fixed-line analog telephone systems, the PSTN is almost entirely digital in its core network and includes mobile and wireless networks, all of which are currently transitioning to use the Internet Protocol to carry their PSTN traffic.

The technical operation of the PSTN adheres to the standards internationally promulgated by the ITU-T. These standards have their origins in the development of local telephone networks, primarily in the Bell System in the United States and in the networks of European ITU members. The E.164 standard provides a single global address space in the form of telephone numbers. The combination of the interconnected networks and a global telephone numbering plan allows telephones around the world to connect with each other. (Full article...)

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A secure telephone is a telephone that provides voice security in the form of end-to-end encryption for the telephone call, and in some cases also the mutual authentication of the call parties, protecting them against a man-in-the-middle attack. Concerns about massive growth of telephone tapping incidents led to growing demand for secure telephones.

The practical availability of secure telephones is restricted by several factors; notably politics, export issues, incompatibility between different products (the devices on each side of the call have to use the same protocol), and high (though recently decreasing) price of the devices. (Full article...)

List of phone types
Payphone Courtesy telephone Emergency 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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Multi-frequency dialing

These multi-frequency tones were generated by automated switching equipment. The blue box was designed to replicate these tones.

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A blue box is an electronic device that produces tones used to generate the in-band signaling tones formerly used within the North American long-distance telephone network to send line status and called number information over voice circuits. During that period, charges associated with long-distance calling were commonplace and could be significant, depending on the time, duration and destination of the call. A blue box device allowed for circumventing these charges by enabling an illicit user, referred to as a "phreaker," to place long-distance calls, without using the network's user facilities, that would be billed to another number or dismissed entirely by the telecom company's billing system as an incomplete call. A number of similar "color boxes" were also created to control other aspects of the phone network. (Full article...)

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

Image 1The LG Prada with a large capacitive touchscreen introduced in 2006 (from Smartphone)
Image 2
Bell prototype telephone stamp
Centennial Issue of 1976
(from History of the telephone)
Image 3Actor 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 4A smartphone touchscreen (from Smartphone)
Image 5A 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 6Dupuis and Haug during a GSM meeting in Belgium, April 1992 (from Mobile phone)
Image 7A Meizu MX4 with Flyme OS (from Smartphone)
Image 8Antonio Meucci's telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 9Smartphone with infrared transmitter on top for use as remote control (from Smartphone)
Image 101896 Telephone (Sweden) (from History of the telephone)
Image 11Xiaomi 13 Ultra featured a Leica Summicron camera system (from Smartphone)
Image 12Apple iPhone smartphone (from History of the telephone)
Image 13Historical marker commemorating the first telephone central office in New York State (1878) (from History of the telephone)
Image 14Active mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants (from Mobile phone)
Image 15Typical mobile phone mini-SIM card (from Mobile phone)
Image 16E-waste in Agbogbloshie (from Smartphone)
Image 17"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 18Mobile payment system (from Mobile phone)
Image 19Elisha Gray, 1876, designed a telephone using a water microphone in Highland Park, Illinois. (from History of the telephone)
Image 20Scrapped mobile phones (from Mobile phone)
Image 21Cellular networks work by only reusing radio frequencies (in this example frequencies f1–f4) in non adjacent cells to avoid interference (from Mobile phone)
Image 22This 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 23The original Apple iPhone; following its introduction the common smartphone form factor shifted to large touchscreen software interfaces without physical keypads (from Smartphone)
Image 24A Moto G7 Power; its display uses a tall aspect ratio and includes a "notch". (from Smartphone)
Image 25Tivadar Puskás proposed the telephone switchboard exchange in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 26Philipp Reis, 1861, constructed the first telephone, today called the Reis telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 27Antonio Meucci, 1854, constructed telephone-like devices. (from History of the telephone)
Image 28A user consulting a mapping app on a phone (from Smartphone)
Image 29The Nokia 9110 Communicator, opened for access to keyboard (from Smartphone)
Image 30The HTC Desire, a 2010 smartphone with optical trackpad and search button (from Smartphone)
Image 31A text message (SMS) (from Mobile phone)
Image 32The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. In 1983, it became the first commercially available handheld cellular mobile phone. (from Mobile phone)
Image 33The master telephone patent granted to Bell, 174465, March 10, 1876 (from History of the telephone)
Image 34Mobile phone subscribers per 100 inhabitants. 2014 figure is estimated. (from Mobile phone)
Image 35A high-capacity portable battery charger (power bank) (from Smartphone)
Image 36Reis's telephone around 1861, first device called telephone (from History of the telephone)
Image 37Several BlackBerry smartphones, which were highly popular in the mid-late 2000s (from Smartphone)
Image 38Private conversation, 1910 (from History of the telephone)
Image 39A 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 40Mobile/desktop convergence: the Librem 5 smartphone can be used as a basic desktop computer (from Smartphone)
Image 41IBM Simon and charging base (1994) (from Smartphone)
Image 42A Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus, featuring a "hole-punch" camera (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 44A New York City driver holding two phones (from Smartphone)
Image 45A driver using two handheld mobile phones at once (from Mobile phone)
Image 46A French Gower telephone of 1912 at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris (from History of the telephone)
Image 47Tooltip 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 48Personal Handy-phone System mobiles and modems, 1997–2003 (from Mobile phone)
Image 49Mobile payment system. (from Smartphone)
Image 50Android smartphones (from Mobile phone)
Image 51Optical track pad sensor of an HTC Legend, 2010. (from Smartphone)
Image 52Martin 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 53Old Receiver schematic, c.1906 (from History of the telephone)
Image 54A 19th century acoustic tin can or "lovers' telephone" (from History of the telephone)
Image 55Inserted memory and SIM cards (from Smartphone)
Image 56People using phones while walking (from Mobile phone)
Image 57Thomas Edison invented the carbon microphone which produced a strong telephone signal. (from History of the telephone)
Image 58A German rotary dial telephone, the W48 (from History of the telephone)
Image 59A Nexus 6, an Android smartphone, displaying the Main Page of the English Wikipedia (from Smartphone)
Image 601917 wall telephone, open to show magneto and local battery (from History of the telephone)
Image 61Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 62Oppo Find X6 features software-based tuning co-developed with Hasselblad (from Smartphone)
Image 63Top of cellular telephone tower (from History of the telephone)

Selected biography

Johann Philipp Reis (German: [ʁaɪs]; 7 January 1834 – 14 January 1874) was a self-taught German scientist and inventor. In 1861, he constructed the first make-and-break telephone, today called the Reis telephone. It was the first device to transmit a voice via electronic signals and for that the first modern telephone. Reis also coined the term. (Full article...)

List of selected biographies
Alexander Graham Bell Thomas Edison Innocenzo Manzetti Charles Bourseul 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 Pat Fleet John Draper

Selected images

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

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Telephones in the news

15 November 2024 – Russian invasion of Ukraine, Germany–Russia relations: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz holds a telephone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the war in Ukraine, their first contact since 2022. Putin tells Scholz that any negotiated settlement to end the war must recognize the territories that Russia has occupied as part of Russia and that Ukraine must abandon its aspiration to join NATO. (AP) (The New York Times)
29 October 2024 –: Four people are injured after a derailed tram crashes into a phone and computer shop in central Oslo, Norway. (Euronews)

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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