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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The frontside of Bell Memorial

The Bell Memorial (also known as the Bell Monument or Telephone Monument) is a memorial designed by Walter Seymour Allward to commemorate the invention of the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell at the Bell Homestead National Historic Site, in Brantford, Ontario, Canada.

In 1906, the citizens of the Brantford and Brant County areas formed the Bell Telephone Memorial Association, which commissioned the memorial. By 1908, the association's designs committee asked sculptors on two continents to submit proposals for the memorial. The submission by Canadian sculptor Walter Seymour Allward of Toronto won the competition. The memorial was originally scheduled for completion by 1912 but Allward, aided by his studio assistant Emanuel Hahn did not finish it until five years later. The Governor General of Canada, Victor Cavendish, 9th Duke of Devonshire, unveiled the memorial on 24 October 1917.

Allward designed the monument to symbolize the telephone's ability to overcome great distances. A series of steps lead to the main section where the floating allegorical figure of Inspiration appears over a reclining male figure representing Man, transmitting sound through space, discovering his power to transmit sound through space, and also pointing to three floating figures, the messengers of Knowledge, Joy, and Sorrow positioned at the other end of the tableau. Additionally, there are two female figures mounted on granite pedestals representing Humanity positioned to the left and right of the memorial, one sending and the other receiving a message. (Full article...)

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A tin can phone is a type of acoustic (non-electrical) speech-transmitting device made up of two tin cans, paper cups or similarly shaped items attached to either end of a taut string or wire.

It is a particular case of mechanical telephony, where sound (i.e., vibrations in the air) is converted into vibrations along a liquid or solid medium. These vibrations are transmitted through the medium (string) and then converted back to sound. (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 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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UK, Ireland, and NZ audible ringing tone

A ringing tone from the United Kingdom, Ireland, and New Zealand

Australian ringing tone

Australia audible ringing tone

European ringing tone

A European ringing tone per ETSI standard

Japanese ringing tone

French ringing tone

A French ringing tone

North American ringing tone

Audible ringing tone from North America

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Ringing tone (audible ringing, also ringback tone) is a signaling tone in telecommunication that is heard by the originator of a telephone call while the destination terminal is alerting the receiving party. The tone is typically a repeated cadence similar to a traditional power ringing signal (ringtone), but is usually not played synchronously. Various telecommunication groups, such as the Bell System and the General Post Office (GPO) developed standards, in part taken over by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and other standards bodies. With modern cell phone and smartphone technology ringing tone can be customized and even used for advertising. (Full article...)

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

Image 1Mobile payment system. (from Smartphone)
Image 2Actor 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 3This 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 4Old Receiver schematic, c.1906 (from History of the telephone)
Image 5Antonio Meucci, 1854, constructed telephone-like devices. (from History of the telephone)
Image 6Optical track pad sensor of an HTC Legend, 2010. (from Smartphone)
Image 7Top of cellular telephone tower (from History of the telephone)
Image 8Apple iPhone smartphone (from History of the telephone)
Image 9A high-capacity portable battery charger (power bank) (from Smartphone)
Image 10The original Apple iPhone; following its introduction the common smartphone form factor shifted to large touchscreen software interfaces without physical keypads (from Smartphone)
Image 11Cellular networks work by only reusing radio frequencies (in this example frequencies f1-f4) in non adjacent cells to avoid interference (from Mobile phone)
Image 12Tooltip 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 13Several BlackBerry smartphones, which were highly popular in the mid-late 2000s (from Smartphone)
Image 14Dupuis and Haug during a GSM meeting in Belgium, April 1992 (from Mobile phone)
Image 15Two decades of evolution of mobile phones, from a 1992 Motorola 8900X-2 to the 2014 iPhone 6 Plus (from Mobile phone)
Image 16A New York City driver holding two phones (from Smartphone)
Image 171896 Telephone (Sweden) (from History of the telephone)
Image 18The back of a Huawei P30. It features three rear-facing camera lenses with Leica optics. (from Smartphone)
Image 19Active mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants (from Mobile phone)
Image 20A 19th century acoustic tin can or "lovers' telephone" (from History of the telephone)
Image 21Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 22A German rotary dial telephone, the W48 (from History of the telephone)
Image 23Antonio Meucci's telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 24A smartphone touchscreen (from Smartphone)
Image 25Mobile/desktop convergence: the Librem 5 smartphone can be used as a basic desktop computer (from Smartphone)
Image 26People using phones while walking (from Mobile phone)
Image 27
Bell prototype telephone stamp
Centennial Issue of 1976
(from History of the telephone)
Image 28Martin 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 29Personal Handy-phone System mobiles and modems, 1997–2003 (from Mobile phone)
Image 30The master telephone patent granted to Bell, 174465, March 10, 1876 (from History of the telephone)
Image 31The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. In 1983, it became the first commercially available handheld cellular mobile phone. (from Mobile phone)
Image 32The Nokia 9110 Communicator, opened for access to keyboard (from Smartphone)
Image 33A user consulting a mapping app on a phone (from Smartphone)
Image 34A 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 35A driver using two handheld mobile phones at once (from Mobile phone)
Image 36A Meizu MX4 with Flyme OS (from Smartphone)
Image 37A French Gower telephone of 1912 at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris (from History of the telephone)
Image 38IBM Simon and charging base (1994) (from Smartphone)
Image 39Typical mobile phone mini-SIM card (from Mobile phone)
Image 40Thomas Edison invented the carbon microphone which produced a strong telephone signal. (from History of the telephone)
Image 41Android smartphones (from Mobile phone)
Image 42A text message (SMS) (from Mobile phone)
Image 43The LG Prada with a large capacitive touchscreen introduced in 2006 (from Smartphone)
Image 44Inserted memory and SIM cards (from Smartphone)
Image 45A Moto G7 Power; its display uses a tall aspect ratio and includes a "notch". (from Smartphone)
Image 46Mobile phone subscribers per 100 inhabitants. 2014 figure is estimated. (from Mobile phone)
Image 47A 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 481917 wall telephone, open to show magneto and local battery (from History of the telephone)
Image 49The HTC Desire, a 2010 smartphone with optical trackpad and search button (from Smartphone)
Image 50The 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 51E-waste in Agbogbloshie (from Smartphone)
Image 52Elisha Gray, 1876, designed a telephone using a water microphone in Highland Park, Illinois. (from History of the telephone)
Image 53A Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus, featuring a "hole-punch" camera (from Smartphone)
Image 54Mobile payment system (from Mobile phone)
Image 55Scrapped mobile phones (from Mobile phone)
Image 56Tivadar Puskás proposed the telephone switchboard exchange in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 57Private conversation, 1910 (from History of the telephone)
Image 58A smartphone displaying the homepage of the English Wikipedia (from Smartphone)
Image 59"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 60Smartphone with infrared transmitter on top for use as remote control (from Smartphone)
Image 61Historical marker commemorating the first telephone central office in New York State (1878) (from History of the telephone)
Image 62Philipp Reis, 1861, constructed the first telephone, today called the Reis telephone. (from History of the telephone)

Selected biography

Douglas H. Ring (March 28, 1907 in Montana – September 8, 2000 in Red Bank, New Jersey) was one of the Bell Labs engineers that invented the cell phone. The history of cellular phone technology began on December 11, 1947 with an internal memo written by Douglas H. Ring in which he proposed development of a cellular telephone system by AT&T.

Although Martin Cooper of Motorola is considered the inventor of the first handheld cellular telephone and the first person to demonstrate to reporters a handheld cell phone call, Cooper's April 1973 call used cellular telephone technology invented and developed by Bell Labs engineers. (Full article...)

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

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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