Top 28 How Much Did A Phone Cost In 1920 The 59 Detailed Answer

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In the late 1920s, the cost of a payphone call in the United States was two cents. In the 1930s, calls were five cents. Early in the 21st century as payphones became rare, the price of a call was fifty cents.Not just anybody could buy a DynaTAC phone: the phone weighed 1.75 pounds, had 30 minutes of talk time, and cost $3,995.The candlestick phone was first introduced around 1892, and it continued until 1920. It was manufactured in the United States and was most often sold there as well. The candlestick phone consisted of a round base that contains a rotary dial.

Contents

What was the price of the first telephone?

Not just anybody could buy a DynaTAC phone: the phone weighed 1.75 pounds, had 30 minutes of talk time, and cost $3,995.

What phone was used in the 1920s?

The candlestick phone was first introduced around 1892, and it continued until 1920. It was manufactured in the United States and was most often sold there as well. The candlestick phone consisted of a round base that contains a rotary dial.

What did the phone look like in 1920?

1920s. Telephones in the ’20s typically had a separate mouthpiece and receiver. The design was known as the candlestick design and newer versions had a dial on the front so a person could call numbers directly.

When did most homes have a phone?

By 1948, the 30 millionth phone was connected in the United States; by the 1960s, there were more than 80 million phone hookups in the U.S. and 160 million in the world; by 1980, there were more than 175 million telephone subscriber lines in the U.S. In 1993, the first digital cellular network went online in Orlando, …

How much did a phone cost in 1880?

The cost of having a telephone in the 1880s was $3 a month. The Exchange, another phone company in Ithaca, supplied all instruments and lines and maintained the service. There was something of a war between telephone companies, beginning in 1881 with the development of the People’s Telephone Co.

What was the old number to call time?

The numbers were simple and easy to remember. In New York City, residents dialed Meridian 1212. In Baltimore, the number was 844-1212. Out west, the service was called POPCORN, because in order to reach it you spelled the word on your phone keypad.

Did they have phones in 1921?

1918 – It was estimated that approximately ten million Bell system telephones were in service throughout the U.S. 1921 – The switching of large numbers of calls was made possible through the use of phantom circuits.

DID phone numbers exist in the 1920s?

In December 1920, as the phone company prepared for direct local dialing, all numbers became four digits. The older two- and three-digit numbers acquired four digits by adding one or two zeroes: Spring 255, say, would have become Spring 0255.

When did the 1st cell phone come out?

The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X was the first handheld cellular phone that allowed people to make longer distance calls than just a landline phone. It did not require any lines or cords to be attached to make a call. The first ever cellular phone call was made in 1973, using this phone, by Dr. Martin Cooper.

How did calls work in the 1920s?

By the 1920s, an exchange could accommodate up to 100,000 numbers. In those years, making a phone call involved picking up the receiver, asking the operator to connect you to a particular number, waiting for her to plug it in, then waiting for the ring to bring someone to the other phone.

Did they have tvs in the 1920s?

Television became available in crude experimental forms in the late 1920s, but only after several years of further development was the new technology marketed to consumers.

How did people communicate 1920s?

1920: The rise of the radio

The radio, telephone, and television spawned what would be known as the era of mass communications. However, many households still could not afford any of their own. The most common form of communications was still the humble newspaper.

How common were phones in the 1920s?

The statistic depicts the percentage of housing units with telephones in the United States between 1920 and 2008. 35% of the housing units had a telephone in 1920.

What was the first phone number?

Let’s break it down: The Pennsylvania Hotel was located nearest the Pennsylvania telephone exchange, or PE, named for Penn Station in New York City. So, to reach the hotel in the 1930s, people would dial PE6-5000 or 736-5000, swapping in numbers for letters.

How much did a payphone cost in 1960?

On average, payphone calls generally cost 5¢ into the 1950s and 10¢ until the mid-1980s. Rates standardized at 25¢ during the mid-1980s to early 1990s. The Bell System was required to apply for increases through state public service commissions.

How much does a telephone cost now?

On average, a landline costs $42 per month. As to the VoIP phone hardware, you probably already have a cordless home telephone on hand, but purchasing a new one would cost about $40 for a basic model. So annual costs for landline phone service and hardware would be $544.

When was the first telephone sold?

The landline in 1876, along with the telegraph a few decades earlier, revolutionized communications, leading leap by leap to the powerful computers tucked snugly in our pockets and purses today.

What was the telephone used for in 1876?

On March 7, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell, scientist, inventor and innovator, received the first patent for an “apparatus for transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically,” a device he called the telephone.

Who was the first person to say hello on the telephone?

Telephone. The use of hello as a telephone greeting has been credited to Thomas Edison; according to one source, he expressed his surprise with a misheard Hullo. Alexander Graham Bell initially used Ahoy (as used on ships) as a telephone greeting.

Evolution of Mobile Phones 📱

Payphone – Wikipedia

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Countries[edit]

In popular culture[edit]

Gallery[edit]

Wikipedia

Coin or card-operated public telephone

This article is about a public telephone. For the song by Maroon 5, see Payphone (song)

A payphone (alternative spelling: pay phone) is typically a coin-operated public telephone, often located in a telephone booth or in high-traffic outdoor areas, with prepayment by inserting money (usually coins) or by billing a credit or debit card, or a telephone card. Prepaid calling cards also facilitate establishing a call by first calling the provided toll-free telephone number, entering the card account number and PIN, then the desired telephone number. An equipment usage fee may be charged as additional units, minutes or tariff fee to the collect/third-party, debit, credit, telephone or prepaid calling card when used at payphones. By agreement with the landlord, either the phone company pays rent for the location and keeps the revenue, or the landlord pays rent for the phone and shares the revenue.

Before the ubiquity of mobile phones, payphones were often found in public places to contribute to the notion of universal access to basic communication services. In the late 1920s, the cost of a payphone call in the United States was two cents. In the 1930s, calls were five cents. Early in the 21st century as payphones became rare, the price of a call was fifty cents.[1] One thesis, written as early as 2003, recognized this as a digital divide problem.[2]
In the 20th century, payphones in some countries, such as Spain, used token coins, available for sale at a local retailer, to activate payphones, instead of legal tender coins. In some cases, these were upgraded to use magnetic cards or credit card readers over the years.

Payphones were once ubiquitous worldwide, but their prevalence has declined significantly in the 21st century due to the increasing availability of mobile phones.

Countries [ edit ]
Canada [ edit ]
Most payphones in Canada are owned and operated by large telecom providers such as Bell, Telus, and SaskTel. In the last 20 years, customer-owned coin-operated telephones (COCOT) have also appeared in the market, but their numbers are smaller due to the emergence of mobile phones.

The cost of most local payphone calls is 50 cents CAD, having increased from 25 cents since 2007.[3] Payphones in Alberta were 35 cents for a time, but in most jurisdictions the price simply doubled. Newer phones allow users to use calling cards and credit cards. For coin-paid long distance, COCOTs are less expensive for short calls (typically $1 for three minutes) than incumbent providers (whose rates start near $5 for the first minute).

Dialing 0 for the operator and 911 calls are still free.

The Toronto Transit Commission deploys payphones on all subway platforms as a safety precaution; a blue “Crisis Link” button on 141 payphones connects directly with Distress Centres of Canada as a free suicide prevention measure.[4]
As of 2013, there were about 70,000 payphones across the country.[5]
In 2013, the CRTC issued a temporary moratorium on the removal of payphones in small communities.[6]
In September 2015, the CRTC remarked that “32 percent of Canadians used a payphone at least once in the past year,” and that they are used “as a last resort in times of inconvenience and emergency.”[6]
Germany [ edit ]
The payphone model 23, introduced at Deutsche Bundespost Telekom in 1992, is an electronic software-controlled payphone for analog connections. It is equipped with coin, (German: Münzspeicherwagen), and integrated test program setting. It has a remote maintenance – the independent reports of a background system by means of an integrated modem error (for example, defects in components, lack of listeners), operating states (for example, full coin box), or departures (for example standing open the cartridge mounting door, missing coin).

The Payphone 23 consists of two basic units, the equipment part including all the necessary for the operation modules (BG) and the secured below the growing payphone cassettes with the coin box.

Italy [ edit ]
In Italy, public payphones have been installed and maintained over the years by Telecom Italia (formerly SIP).[7]
Payphone model U+I from 1964 to 1982

Payphone model G+M from 1982 to 1987

Payphone model Rotor from 1987 to 2002

Payphone model Digito since 2002

Japan [ edit ]
Payphone booth in Kyoto, Japan, with figures etched into the glass

The majority of payphones on the street and in buildings in Japan are installed and maintained by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT).[citation needed]
Russia [ edit ]
In the Soviet period, different types of payphones were produced. There were also long-distance call payphones costing 15 kopeks, and also provided services of paid media such as listening to an anecdote, obtaining legal advice, or finding the address of the subscriber by phone number. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the monetary reform of 1991, this form of payment became irrelevant. Some payphones were altered to accept tokens, while others have been designed to use telephone cards. For example, in St Petersburg, payment for payphones can be made with metro tokens. In some regions, calls from public phones are free of charge.[citation needed]
Spain [ edit ]
Telephones were a monopoly of the national government in Spain. Payphones took a slug or ficha, a piece of metal with two troughs in it, making it hard to counterfeit. Payphones were typically found in bars, restaurants, and stores, never freestanding. Phones would accept some 5 fichas at a time (the exact number varied depending on phone model), showing through a plastic window the number remaining, and return unused ones to the customer.[citation needed]
An older and simpler system was to use a mechanical counter, which automatically counted units of time, called pasos, a “pass” in the sense of “passage of time”. The counter was the marcador de pasos. The length of each paso varied depending on the cost (distance) of the call. At the conclusion of a call the number of pasos was multiplied by a fixed amount, which could vary by time of day, creating a sum total that the customer would pay to a human attendant. This system survived in small hotels at least until the 1970s.[citation needed]
Spain also had an institution with no equivalent in the United States, the locutorio, literally “place where one talks”. They were a type of store, in the main square of a town or close to it, where one booked a phone call by going to a counter, filling out a paper slip, and handing it to a person (almost always a female). Sometimes advance payment was required (unused minutes refunded). The recipient of the slip would either directly or indirectly, depending on the equipment, make the call and send the customer to a phone booth with a dialless instrument on which to speak. In communities too small to support a locutorio this service might be offered by businesses with telephones, such as pharmacies. Locutorios disappeared in the last quarter of the 20th century, as the whole country moved to direct distance dialing and cell phones (in Spanish “mobile phones”) grew.[citation needed]
United Kingdom [ edit ]
In the UK, payphones have been deregulated. The great majority of them are still operated by British Telecom (BT) but other providers exist, mostly in urban areas. Hull, Manchester, London, Cardiff and Glasgow, at the turn of the 21st century, have a greater concentration of non-BT payphones, since BT has been removing payphones which are unprofitable in terms of having few or no calls made in a financial year.[citation needed]
Kiosk adoption

BT allows local communities to adopt[8] the iconic Red K6 Kiosks due to strong opposition to their removal from the communities that the kiosks reside in. This will mean the removal of the phone, leaving the empty kiosk in-situ.[9]
Sponsored kiosk

Another option BT has provided is the sponsored kiosk,[10] that will retain the phone service, and retain the kiosk for an annual fee of around £300 excluding VAT, whether it is the Red K6 or the newer aluminium and glass kiosks that cannot be adopted.

A typical BT payphone in Scotland

Payphone types

Due to disability discrimination law, specifically the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, in the past payphone providers were required to provide a certain number of textphone payphones as part of their network, as this was deemed a “reasonable adjustment” for deaf customers. These phones can also make voice calls, as well as send SMS and e-mail messages, and although this requirement is no longer in force due to minimal use of the textphone feature in these phones, many of these devices remain in service, generally in populated areas.[11]
In addition, in the early 2000s BT installed a large number of ‘Multiphones’ that provided internet access, on top of voice, SMS, and e-mail functionality.[12][13][14] These payphones provided these services through the use of a 2-channel ISDN2 connection, a QNX-based operating system, and a touchscreen interface to allow the user to browse websites and receive e-mail messages on a pay-per-minute basis.[15][16][17] However, these devices have since been removed due to quickly becoming obsolete, often with the ordinary payphone previously installed in that location taking its place once again.

Cost

From 1 June 2010, BT payphones have a £0.60 minimum charge which is for the first 30 minutes of any direct-dialled national geographic call. Previously the minimum charge was £0.40 for the first 20 minutes of any direct-dialled national geographic call. Then before November 2006 the minimum charge was £0.30, before 2004 it was £0.20 and before 2000 it was £0.10. Credit/debit cards can also be used, and many BT payphones have card readers for this service; however, calls made using a card are charged at a significantly higher rate than calls made using cash.[18]
BT Phonecards were introduced in 1981 and could be used in most BT payphones to pay for calls. Purchased from participating retailers, and originally using an optical system to register credit, the design was changed to a chip-based system in the 1990s, before being withdrawn altogether in 2003.[19]
In the past, a BT Chargecard could be used from any UK landline to charge any telephone calls made to the cardholder’s BT home telephone account, at no cost to the owner of the landline the card was being used from.[20] These were most commonly used in payphones, and some BT payphones have dedicated readers for these cards.[21] However, this service has since been discontinued.[22] Other cards which are often used instead include supermarket international calling cards and many other telephone cards which can be bought from newsagents.

Although 0800 and 0808 numbers are free to the caller when dialled from most payphones, the owner of the number will be billed a ‘Payphone Access Charge’ (PAC) which has increased significantly in recent years, and is currently £0.79 per minute, if their number is called from a payphone. This has resulted in many businesses, and even calling card providers,[23] barring calls to their freephone numbers originating from payphones. Charity helplines are exempt from this charge if called from a BT payphone, however this exemption does not apply to calls made from payphones owned by other providers, and in these cases the charity will still have to pay the PAC.[24]
Cost examples (from BT payphones using cash)

There is a £0.40 connection charge, in addition to the “per minute” charges shown below, and a minimum charge of £0.60.[25] Some payphones also offer SMS and e-mail service,[26] both of which are charged at £0.20 per message, and must be paid for using cash.[13]
Call prefix Type of call Seconds per £0.10 block Cost per minute 0800/0808/116 Freephone Free to caller Free to caller 01/02/03 Landline (local/national) 900 £0.0067 07 (most) Mobile 9.5 £0.63 070/076 PNS/Pagers 3 £2.00 0845 Non-geographic (‘Special Services’) – ‘Lo-Call’ 30 £0.20 0870 Non-geographic (‘Special Services’) – ‘National’ 12 £0.50 09 Premium-rate services (‘PRS’) 1.5 £4.00 123 Speaking clock (‘Timeline’) 5 £1.20

United States [ edit ]
1C Payphone – Bell System, Made by Western Electric

Payphones were preceded by pay stations, staffed by telephone company attendants who would collect rapid payment for calls placed. The Connecticut Telephone Co. reportedly had a payphone in their New Haven office beginning 1 June 1880; the fee was handed to an attendant. In 1889, a public telephone with a coin-pay mechanism was installed at the Hartford Bank in Hartford, Connecticut, by the Southern New England Telephone Co. It was a “post-pay” machine; coins were inserted at the end of a conversation. The coin mechanism was invented by William Gray; he was issued a series of patents for his devices, beginning with U.S. Patent 454,470 issued 23 June 1891 for a “Signal Device for Telephone Pay-Stations” which rang a bell for each coin inserted. He subsequently founded the Telephone Pay Station Co. in 1891.[27] The “pre-pay” phone debuted in Chicago in 1898.[28]
By 1902, there were 81,000 payphones in the United States.[citation needed] By 1905, the first outdoor payphones with booths were installed. By the end of 1925, 25,000 of these booths existed in New York City alone.[29] In 1960, the Bell System installed its one millionth telephone booth.[citation needed] Booths, which were expensive, gradually faded away not much later.

The Bell System payphone took nickels (5¢), dimes (10¢), and quarters (25¢); a strip of metal along the top had holes the size of each coin. This made possible a mechanism causing each coin to make a different series of sounds as it fell into the cash box; thus an operator listening could tell how much had been inserted.[citation needed]
On average, payphone calls generally cost 5¢ into the 1950s and 10¢ until the mid-1980s. Rates standardized at 25¢ during the mid-1980s to early 1990s. The Bell System was required to apply for increases through state public service commissions. Therefore, the actual increases took effect at different times in different locations.[30][31]
After the breakup of the Bell System in 1984, it was not long before independent stores selling telephones opened up. After that, privately owned payphones hit the market. Sources differ as to whether the peak number of payphones in the United States was 2.6 million in 1995[32] or 2.2 million in 2000.[33] Since 2007, the number of payphones in the United States in operation has declined by 48%. In July 2009, AT&T officially stopped supporting the Public Payphone service. Over 139,000 locations were sold in 2009. At the end of 2012, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reported the number of payphones at 243,487[34] generating $362 million – falling to $286 million by 2015.[35] The major carriers, AT&T and Verizon, have both exited the business, leaving the market to be served by independent payphone companies.[36] An estimated 100,000 payphones in the U.S. remain as of 2018, with roughly a fifth of them located in New York.[37]
In recent years, deregulation in the United States has allowed payphone service provided by a variety of companies. Such telephones are called “customer-owned coin-operated telephones” (COCOT), and are mostly kept in as good condition as compared with a payphone owned and operated by the local telephone company.[citation needed] COCOT contracts are usually more generous to the landlord than telecom ones, hence telecom payphones on private premises have been more often replaced than street phones.[further explanation needed] One common implementation is operated by vending machine companies and contains a hard-wired list of non-toll telephone exchanges to which it will complete calls.[citation needed]
In the United States, a payphone operator collects an FCC-mandated fee of 49.4¢ from the owner of a toll-free number for each call successfully placed to that number from the payphone. This results in many toll-free numbers rejecting calls from payphones in an attempt to avoid this surcharge; calling cards, which require the caller to dial through a toll-free number, will often pass this surcharge back to the caller, either as a separate itemized charge, a 50¢ to 90¢ increase in the price of the call, or (in the case of many prepaid calling cards) the deduction of an extra number of minutes from the balance of the prepaid card.[citation needed]
“Dead-heads” may have influenced the development of the payphone. Dead-heads were non-subscriber users that made a call at a place of business and did not pay for the call. The Wisconsin Telephone Company in 1893, for example, attempted to put an end to this practice by implementing ten-cent coin slots so that users had to pay for the call. The idea behind this was to reduce the financial stress a smaller business may face from having dead-heads.[38]
In popular culture [ edit ]
In the Superman comic books and live-action films, Clark Kent routinely uses a phone booth to change into his Superman costume. Similarly, Underdog also changes into his costume from a shoe-shine vendor using a phone booth; this results, however, in the total destruction of the booth and phone set.

The 1978 Superman film pays a humorous homage to this trope by having Superman pause by one of the smaller telephone kiosks more common at that time and glance at it, before running off to change his outfit off-screen.

The opening sequence of the television show Get Smart features a telephone booth as the last in a series of obstacles guarding the Control entrance. Maxwell Smart steps into the payphone, closes the door, dials a number, and the telephone booth floor descends out of sight. This use of a payphone booth is particularly ironic since no member of the public would be able to access it in any case, and Smart himself commonly uses a mobile phone in his shoe.

In the 1969 The Brady Bunch episode “Sorry, Right Number”, Mike Brady installs a (boothless) payphone in his home, after his children run up a large phone bill. He gets the suggestion from his maid Alice, whose boyfriend Sam had a payphone installed in his butcher shop after losing profits to “dead-head” customers. He gives his children extra allowance for two calls per day – any further calls they would have to pay out of their own regular allowance. However, he is later forced to make a business deal over the same payphone, and almost sabotages it when his prepaid 10¢ runs out and makes the customer question his company’s financial stability. However, he manages to clinch the deal, and also manages to give the phone away to the customer, who is having his own problems with phoneaholic teenagers.[39]
The 1986 film Jumpin’ Jack Flash features Whoopi Goldberg’s character being abducted while in a phone booth by picking up the booth itself with a tow truck and dragging it through Manhattan streets.

In the Harry Potter books – and the films – there is a red telephone box outside the Ministry of Magic that wizards use to access the Ministry. From the phone box, one must dial ‘62442’ and the phone booth acts as a lift, taking visitors down underneath the ground to the Ministry.[40]
A payphone booth is used as a time machine in the Bill & Ted film franchise, starting with Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989).

The 2002 film Phone Booth takes place in a phone booth. The main character is held hostage in it for a whole day. He has been using the payphone to call his mistress so that his wife will not see the telephone number on their cellular telephone bill.

A Mojave phone booth in an isolated area of the Mojave National Preserve miles from the paved road was the subject of an Internet meme and a 2006 independent film, Mojave Phone Booth. The original Pacific Bell booth was removed in 2000; for nostalgia, Lucky225 assigned its number (1-760-733-9969) to an open conference bridge in 2013.

Popular pop song “Payphone” by the band Maroon 5, featuring Wiz Khalifa, released on their fourth studio album Overexposed.

The small town of Beggs, Oklahoma attracted national attention in the late 1970s when public payphones offering calls for only five cents had been essentially phased out across the country, but Beggs still had one.[41][42] As of 2020, Beggs still has a nickel payphone, maintained in front of the Beggs Telephone Company office.[43]
In The Dresden Files book series, the titular character relies on older technology, including payphones, due to his magical powers interfering with more modern electronics (such as cellular phones).[citation needed]
Gallery [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]

History of the Telephone

Today, we take telephones for granted. You probably have a telephone within arm’s reach as you read this. But just over 100 years ago, the idea of instantly chatting to someone anywhere in the world seemed impossible.

How did someone figure out the technology that makes the telephone possible? Where could telephones take us in the future? Today, we’re going to explain the history of the telephone.

Early Telephones

You may already know that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in the 1880s. But Bell didn’t invent this device out of thin air: early telephones had started being developed as early as the 1660s.

Yes, these telephones were incredibly primitive compared to Bell’s telephone, but they still deserve to be mentioned.

Mechanical Acoustic Devices

Early telephones are more accurately called “mechanical acoustic devices”. Instead of transforming audio energy into electrical energy, these devices simply transmitted voice data mechanically – like through pipes and other media.

Using these basic devices, users could transmit speech and music over distances greater than you would be able to transmit if you were speaking (or yelling).

One of the best-known examples of this technology is called the tin can telephone, also known as the lover’s phone. It’s the same types of “phones” you created in elementary school when you were younger: you connect two tin cans (or “diaphragms”) using a taut string or wire. The mechanical vibrations from your voice travel down the wire before being converted back into sound energy at the other end of the line.

British physicist Robert Hooke was credited as the first person to invent one of these devices. Between 1664 and 1685, Hooke conducted numerous experiments with these devices. The first telephone-like device, an acoustic string phone, is credited to him in 1667.

1700s: Scientist Theorizes You Can Transmit Messages Through Electricity

In 1753, one Scottish scientist named Charles Morrison proposed an important theory: you could transmit messages through electricity by using different wires for each letter.

Morrison is credited as the first person to theorize that an electric telegraph could exist.

Before We Had Electrical Telephones, We First Needed Electrical Telegraphs

Mechanical devices faced some obvious restrictions. You couldn’t transmit sound over long distances. The sound didn’t come out perfectly. You couldn’t transmit through certain media. And you needed to be physically connected to the other “telephone”.

Inventors knew there had to be a better way. Starting in the 1800s, inventors like Francisco Salva Campillo and Alexander Graham Bell started trying to develop electrical telephones.

Electrical telephones sought to combine the audio transmission technology of mechanical acoustic devices with the long-distance electrical data transmission of the electrical telegraph.

But first, inventors had to create better electrical telegraphs.

In 1804, Catalan scientist and inventor Francisco Salva Campillo created an electrochemical telegraph. In 1832, Baron Schilling improved upon the device. Two German inventors created their own electromagnetic telegraph in 1833. The first working electrical telegraph, however, wasn’t put into place until April 1839 when it was constructed on the Great Western Railway in England.

In 1837, Samuel Morse independently developed his own electrical telegraph and patented the invention in America. His assistant, Alfred Vail, created a Morse code signaling alphabet that could be used to transmit messages electronically. By 1838, Morse had sent America’s first telegram.

Why did we need electrical telegraphs before the telephone? Well, both the telephone and the telegraph are wire-based electrical systems. The telegraph also paved the way for later telephone inventors. As About.com explains, “Alexander Graham Bell’s success with the telephone came as a direct result of his attempts to improve the telegraph.”

By the time Bell began experimenting with using electrical signals to send audio data, the telegraph has been an established means of communication for nearly three decades.

Limitations of the Telegraph: Why Did We Need a Telephone?

One of the more puzzling parts parts about the invention of the telephone (at least to our modern way of thinking) is that when Bell first showed off his telephone, many people argued that we didn’t actually need such a device. Why would you want to hear someone’s voice when you could just send them a telegram instead?

The truth is, the telegraph was an extremely limited system. The telegraph was only popular because it was the only way to transmit messages over long distances at this point in time.

The two biggest problems with the telegraph were its dot and dash Morse code system, which limited the device to only receiving and sending one message at a time, as well as its reliance on physical lines. A break anywhere in the line – including in undersea intercontinental cables – would disable the system.

Telegraphs were also limited by their reliance on repeaters, which needed to be placed along the telegraph line to ensure the signal could reach long distances. Repeaters weren’t just automatic relay stations: they were stations where a technician had to receive the signal, then re-transmit that signal down the line.

Understandably, the world needed a telephone to improve global communications.

Who Invented the Telephone?

If someone asked you who invented the telephone, you’d probably answer Alexander Graham Bell. But just like schoolkids used to learn that Edison invented electricity, this invention story isn’t always true.

The truth is: there were six different inventors working on electrical telephones around this time with high levels of success. As Wikipedia describes it, “The early history of the telephone became and still remains a confusing morass of claims and counterclaims.”

This history is confounded further by the fact that these inventors would later file lawsuits against each other. Claims led to counterclaims and lawsuits failed to clarify who exactly invented what.

Nevertheless, thanks to US patents, we know who invented the telephone from a practical standpoint: the Bell and Edison patents were commercially decisive because they dominated telephone technology. Over the years, these patents would hold up in numerous court decisions across America.

The six inventors typically credited with invented some type of electrical telephony device include:

Alexander Graham Bell: Bell received the first US patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876. Bell used his own musical or harmony approach as a practical solution to the telegraph’s problems – Bell’s harmonic telegraph was based on the idea that several notes could be sent along the way simultaneously as long as the notes or signals had different pitches.

Bell received the first US patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876. Bell used his own musical or harmony approach as a practical solution to the telegraph’s problems – Bell’s harmonic telegraph was based on the idea that several notes could be sent along the way simultaneously as long as the notes or signals had different pitches. Thomas Edison: Edison is credited with inventing the carbon microphone, which “produced a strong telephone signal.”

Edison is credited with inventing the carbon microphone, which “produced a strong telephone signal.” Antonio Meucci: In 1854, he constructed telephone-like devices.

In 1854, he constructed telephone-like devices. Johann Philipp Reis: In 1860, Reis constructed “Reis” telephones, but stopped just short of making these telephones practical, working devices.

In 1860, Reis constructed “Reis” telephones, but stopped just short of making these telephones practical, working devices. Elisha Gray: In 1876, Gray used a water microphone to create a telephone in Highland Park, Illinois. Gray and Bell developed their inventions simultaneously and independently, which is why these two would fight a vicious legal battle over who actually invented the telephone (see below).

In 1876, Gray used a water microphone to create a telephone in Highland Park, Illinois. Gray and Bell developed their inventions simultaneously and independently, which is why these two would fight a vicious legal battle over who actually invented the telephone (see below). Tivadar Puskas: This Hungarian invented the telephone switchboard exchange in 1876.

Out of all the inventors listed above, the biggest contention is whether Bell or Gray invented the telephone. These two were the closest to creating what we know as modern, working telephones.

There has been a significant amount of controversy over the years over whether Bell or Gray invented the phone. The controversy actually went before the Canadian Parliament and United States House of Representatives at one point. I’m not going to go into huge detail here because it’s outside the scope of this article, but you can read up on the Elisha Gray and Alexander Bell telephone controversy here.

Ultimately, we can safely say the telephone is the work of many people. Bell, however, is credited with inventing the first practical, patented telephone – mostly because Bell won the famous legal battle instead of Gray.

Bell Invents the Telephone

Alexander Graham Bell was born on March 3, 1847 in Edinburgh, Scotland. His father and grandfather were considered authorities in elocution and the correction of speech. Bell originally intended to follow in the footsteps of his family, and pursued a career and education in the same specialty.

As one article on Bell explains, “his knowledge of the nature of sound led him not only to teach the deaf, but also to invent the telephone.”

In 1875, Bell was experimenting with his unique “harmonic telegraph” approach. This approach theorized that you could send multiple signals along an electrical wire – as long as those signals differed in pitch.

But on June 2, 1875, Bell hit a breakthrough with his harmonic telegraph. While experimenting, Bell realized he could hear a sound over a wire. The “sound” was a twanging clock spring.

10 months later, Bell achieved greater success. On March 10, 1876, Bell successfully spoke through a telephone to his assistant in the next room, saying:

“Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.”

The rest is history.

The First Telephone Line is Constructed in 1877

Bell successfully used his telephone invention in 1876. By 1877, construction of the first regular telephone line between Boston and Somerville, Massachusetts had been completed.

Telephone line construction exploded with growth over the next few years. By 1880, there were 47,900 telephones across America. By 1881, telephone service between Boston and Providence had been established. By 1892, a telephone line had been constructed between New York and Chicago. By 1894, New York and Boston were connected.

Transcontinental telephone service, however, remained elusive in the 19th century. Building a wire across the entire length of America didn’t seem practical given the low populations and huge distances out west. Thus, transcontinental service was not established until 1915, when it was completed by overhead wire.

The First Telephone Switchboards

The first telephone switchboard was created at the same time as the first telephone line: 1877 in Boston.

The first telephone switchboard patent, however, was not established until January 17, 1882, when Leroy Firman received the first patent for a telephone switchboard.

By 1971, Erna Schneider Hoover had patented the first computerized telephone exchange.

Bell Telephone Company

Bell Telephone Company – named after Alexander Graham Bell – was established in 1878. Today, we know that company as American Telephone and Telegraph, or AT&T.

Alexander Graham Bell didn’t actually found the company: the company was founded by Bell’s father-in-law, Gardiner Greene Hubbard. At first, the company was exclusively founded to hold “potentially valuable patents”, like Bell’s master telephone patent (#174465).

By the middle of 1878, the Bell Telephone Company had 10,000 phones in service. As the company’s subscriber base grew and grew, many Americans accused the company of running a giant monopoly over the American telephone industry.

Bell would face over 600 lawsuits for its allegations of monopolistic practices. It won every one of these lawsuits.

Eventually, that company would sell telephone equipment across America. Later, the company would sell telephones across Europe and other parts of the world.

Why isn’t AT&T an international company today? In 1925, the company was facing considerable criticism from the public for its perceived monopoly. Namely, AT&T was thought to be charging domestic telephone users rates that were “higher than they needed to be” in order to finance overseas operations in Europe and Canada.

Following the U.S. government’s regulatory intervention, AT&T’s president at the time decided to divest all of the company’s international interests in 1925.

The only two international parts of the company that were not divested in 1925 were Bell Telephone Company of Canada (now called Bell Canada) and Northern Electric (now called Nortel).

History of Pay Phones

The world’s first pay phone was created and patented by an inventor named William Gray from Hartford, Connecticut. The pay phone was coin-operated and installed in Hartford Bank in 1889.

Types of Telephones

Over the years, we’ve had a few major types of telephones, including rotary dialing phones, candlestick phones touch tones, and cordless phones.

Exchanges, Tap Dialing, and Rotary Dialing

The first rotary dial was invented in 1896. Prior to that, telephone owners would have to push a button on their telephone the required number of pulses by tapping in order to call a number. Understandably, the rotary dial was seen as a superior alternative to this system. By 1943, the last button tapping telephone had been phased out. Rotary dials worked by generating pulses in a certain frequency range based on where the rotary dial turned.

Candlestick Phones

Candlestick phones were popularized throughout the 1890s to the 1930s. The candlestick phone was separated into two pieces: a mouthpiece that stood upright (“the candlestick”) and a receiver, which was placed in your ear when you were placing a phone call. By the 1930s, these types of phones had phased out of fashion as phone manufacturers started combining the mouth piece and receive into a single unit – a trend that continues to the modern day.

Touch Tone Phones

The first touch tone phone was invented in 1941. These phones used tones in the voice frequency range – much different from the pulses generated by rotary dials. You pressed the buttons on the phone to make a phone call.

Cordless Phones

Cordless phones started to hit the market in the 1970s. In 1986, the FTC had released the frequency range between 47 and 49 MHz for use by cordless phones.

This wider frequency range meant phones could work wirelessly with less interference and less power required in order to run.

As cordless phones became more and more popular, the FTC would eventually grant more and more frequency range to cordless phones over the years. In 1990, cordless phones received the frequency range of 900 MHz. in 1994 and 1995, digital broad spectrum (DSS) was introduced along with digital cordless phones.

Digital technologies enhanced the security of cordless phones. Instead of messages being transmitted unencrypted through the air, digital technology allowed for greater protection and less unwanted eavesdropping.

In 1998, the FCC granted the frequency range of 2.4 GHz to cordless phones. In 2003, the FCC bumped the upper limit of the frequency range to 5.8 GHz.

The First Cell Phones

Cell phones have obviously exploded with growth over the past 20-odd years. But the first cell phone dates back to post-World War II America.

In 1947, researchers began theorizing that a mobile telephone was possible. They experimented with installing telephones in vehicles. Scientists realized that by using small ranges of service areas while reusing frequency, they could be able to significantly increase the traffic capacity of mobile phones.

It would take about 40 years before the world’s first commercially-available mobile phone, the Motorola DynaTAC, was released. That phone was about as large as a payphone and looked a lot like a baby monitor.

Prior to the consumer release of the DynaTAC, Martin Cooper had made the world’s first mobile phone call ever using a predecessor of the DynaTAC.

Not just anybody could buy a DynaTAC phone: the phone weighed 1.75 pounds, had 30 minutes of talk time, and cost $3,995.

The First Telephone Book

The first telephone book was released soon after the world’s first telephone line was invented. That first telephone book, released in 1878 by the New Haven District Telephone Company, was just one page long and held 50 names. The book did not list any numbers. If you needed to call someone, you just said that person’s name and the operator would connect you.

That first phone book was divided into four sections for Residential, Professional, Miscellaneous, and “Essential” services listed.

By 1886, entrepreneur Reuben H. Donnelly had produced the first Yellow Pages business directory, which categorized businesses based on the types of products and services provided.

1870s – 1940s: Telephone – Imagining the Internet

This timeline is provided to help show how the dominant form of communication changes as rapidly as innovators develop new technologies.

A brief historical overview: The printing press was the big innovation in communications until the telegraph was developed. Printing remained the key format for mass messages for years afterward, but the telegraph allowed instant communication over vast distances for the first time in human history. Telegraph usage faded as radio became easy to use and popularized; as radio was being developed, the telephone quickly became the fastest way to communicate person-to-person; after television was perfected and content for it was well developed, it became the dominant form of mass-communication technology; the internet came next, and newspapers, radio, telephones, and television are being rolled into this far-reaching information medium.

Development of the Telephone

World Changes Due to the Telephone

Telephone Predictions

The Development of the Telephone

As with many innovations, the idea for the telephone came along far sooner than it was brought to reality. While Italian innovator Antonio Meucci (pictured at left) is credited with inventing the first basic phone in 1849, and Frenchman Charles Bourseul devised a phone in 1854, Alexander Graham Bell won the first U.S. patent for the device in 1876. Bell began his research in 1874 and had financial backers who gave him the best business plan for bringing it to market.

In 1877-78, the first telephone line was constructed, the first switchboard was created and the first telephone exchange was in operation. Three years later, almost 49,000 telephones were in use. In 1880, Bell (in the photo below) merged this company with others to form the American Bell Telephone Company and in 1885 American Telegraph and Telephone Company (AT&T) was formed; it dominated telephone communications for the next century. At one point in time, Bell System employees purposely denigrated the U.S. telephone system to drive down stock prices of all phone companies and thus make it easier for Bell to acquire smaller competitors.

By 1900 there were nearly 600,000 phones in Bell’s telephone system; that number shot up to 2.2 million phones by 1905, and 5.8 million by 1910. In 1915 the transcontinental telephone line began operating. By 1907, AT&T had a near monopoly on phone and telegraph service, thanks to its purchase of Western Union. Its president, Theodore Vail, urged at the time that a monopoly could most efficiently operate the nation’s far-flung communications network. At the urging of the public and AT&T competitors, the government began to investigate the company for anti-trust violations, thus forcing the 1913 Kingsbury Commitment, an agreement between AT&T vice president Nathan Kingsbury and the office of the U.S. Attorney General. Under this commitment, AT&T agreed to divest itself of Western Union and provide long-distance services to independent phone exchanges.

During World War I, the government nationalized telephone and telegraph lines in the United States from June 1918 to July 1919, when, after a joint resolution of Congress, President Wilson issued an order putting them under the direction of the U.S. Post Office. A year later, the systems were returned to private ownership, AT&T resumed its monopolistic hold, and by 1934 the government again acted, this time agreeing to allow it to operate as a “regulated monopoly” under the jurisdiction of the FCC.

Public utility commissions in state and local jurisdictions were appointed regulators of AT&T and the nation’s independent phone companies, while the FCC regulated long-distance services conducted across state lines. They set the rates the phone companies could charge and determined what services and equipment each could offer. This stayed in effect until AT&T’s forced divestiture in 1984, the conclusion of a U.S. Department of Justice anti-trust suit that had been filed in 1974. The all-powerful company had become popularly known and disparaged as “Ma Bell.” AT&T’s local operations were divided into seven independent Regional Bell Operating Companies, known as the “Baby Bells.” AT&T became a long-distance-services company.

By 1948, the 30 millionth phone was connected in the United States; by the 1960s, there were more than 80 million phone hookups in the U.S. and 160 million in the world; by 1980, there were more than 175 million telephone subscriber lines in the U.S. In 1993, the first digital cellular network went online in Orlando, Florida; by 1995 there were 25 million cellular phone subscribers, and that number exploded at the turn of the century, with digital cellular phone service expected to replace land-line phones for most U.S. customers by as early as 2010.

World Changes Due to the Telephone

Within 50 years of its invention, the telephone had become an indispensable tool in the United States. In the late 19th century, people raved about the telephone’s positive aspects and ranted about what they anticipated would be negatives. Their key points, recorded by Ithiel de Sola Pool in his 1983 book “Forecasting the Telephone,” mirror nearly precisely what was later predicted about the impact of the internet.

For example, people said the telephone would: help further democracy; be a tool for grassroots organizers; lead to additional advances in networked communications; allow social decentralization, resulting in a movement out of cities and more flexible work arrangements; change marketing and politics; alter the ways in which wars are fought; cause the postal service to lose business; open up new job opportunities; allow more public feedback; make the world smaller, increasing contact between peoples of all nations and thus fostering world peace; increase crime and aid criminals; be an aid for physicians, police, fire, and emergency workers; be a valuable tool for journalists; bring people closer together, decreasing loneliness and building new communities; inspire a decline in the art of writing; have an impact on language patterns and introduce new words; and someday lead to an advanced form of the transmission of intelligence.

Privacy was also a major concern. As is the case with the Internet, the telephone worked to improve privacy while simultaneously leaving people open to invasions of their privacy. In the beginning days of the telephone, people would often have to journey to the local general store or some other central point to be able to make and receive calls. Most homes weren’t wired together, and eavesdroppers could hear you conduct your personal business as you used a public phone. Switchboard operators who connected the calls would also regularly invade people’s privacy. The early house-to-house phone systems were often “party lines” on which a number of families would receive calls, and others were free to listen in and often chose to do so.

Today, while most homes are wired and people can travel freely, conducting their phone conversations wirelessly, wiretapping and other surveillance methods can be utilized to listen in on their private business. People’s privacy can also be interrupted by unwanted phone calls from telemarketers and others who wish to profit in some way – just as Internet e-mail accounts receive unwanted sales pitches, known as “spam.”

Yet, the invention of the telephone also worked to increase privacy in many ways. It permitted people to exchange information without having to put it in writing, and a call on the phone came to replace such intrusions on domestic seclusion as unexpected visits from relatives or neighbors and the pushy patter of door-to-door salesmen. The same could be said for the Internet – privacy has been enhanced in some ways because e-mail and instant messaging have reduced the frequency of the jangling interruptions previously dished out by our telephones.

Past Predictions About the Future of the Telephone

President Rutherford B. Hayes to Alexander Graham Bell in 1876 on viewing the telephone for the first time:

“That’s an amazing invention, but who would ever want to use one of them?”

Bell offered to sell his telephone patent to Western Union for $100,000 in 1876, when he was struggling with the business. An account that is believed by some to be apocryphal, but still recounted in many telephone histories states that the committee appointed to investigate the offer filed the following report:

“We do not see that this device will be ever capable of sending recognizable speech over a distance of several miles. Messer Hubbard and Bell want to install one of their ‘telephone devices’ in every city. The idea is idiotic on the face of it. Furthermore, why would any person want to use this ungainly and impractical device when he can send a messenger to the telegraph office and have a clear written message sent to any large city in the United States? … Mr. G.G. Hubbard’s fanciful predictions, while they sound rosy, are based on wild-eyed imagination and lack of understanding of the technical and economic facts of the situation, and a posture of ignoring the obvious limitations of his device, which is hardly more than a toy … This device is inherently of no use to us. We do not recommend its purchase.”

As reported in the book “Bell” by Robert V. Bruce, Kate Field, a British reporter who knew Bell, predicted in 1878 that eventually:

“While two persons, hundreds of miles apart, are talking together, they will actually see each other.”

Sir William Preece, chief engineer for the British Post Office, 1878, as reported in “The Telephone in a Changing World” by Marion May Dilts:

“There are conditions in America which necessitate the use of such instruments more than here. Here we have a superabundance of messengers, errand boys and things of that kind … The absence of servants has compelled America to adopt communications systems for domestic purposes.”

AT&T chief engineer and Electrical Review writer John J. Carty projected in his “Prophets Column” in 1891:

“A system of telephony without wires seems one of the interesting possibilities, and the distance on the earth through which it is possible to speak is theoretically limited only by the curvation of the earth.”

Carty also wrote:

“Someday we will build up a world telephone system, making necessary to all peoples the use of a common language or common understanding of languages, which will join all the people of the earth into one brotherhood. There will be heard throughout the earth a great voice coming out of the ether which will proclaim, ‘Peace on earth, good will towards men.’”

In the 1912 article “The Future Home Theatre” in The Independent, S.C. Gilfillan wrote:

“There are two mechanical contrivances … each of which bears in itself the power to revolutionize entertainment, doing for it what the printing press did for books. They are the talking motion picture and the electric vision apparatus with telephone. Either one will enable millions of people to see and hear the same performance simultaneously .. or successively from kinetoscope and phonographic records … These inventions will become cheap enough to be … in every home … You will have the home theatre of 1930, oh ye of little faith.”

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