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 history of mobile phones covers mobile communication devices that connect wirelessly to the public switched telephone network.

While the transmission of speech by signal has a long history, the first devices that were wireless, mobile, and also capable of connecting to the standard telephone network are much more recent. The first such devices were barely portable compared to today's compact hand-held devices, and their use was clumsy.

Drastic changes have taken place in both the networking of wireless communication and the prevalence of its use, with smartphones becoming common globally and a growing proportion of Internet access now done via mobile broadband. (Full article...)

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Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued mobile operating system developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design language. Unlike Windows Mobile, it was primarily aimed at the consumer market rather than the enterprise market.

It was first launched in October 2010 with Windows Phone 7. Windows Phone 8 succeeded it in 2012, replacing the Windows CE-based kernel of Windows Phone 7 with the Windows NT kernel used by the PC versions of Windows (and, in particular, a large amount of internal components from Windows 8). Due to these changes, the OS was incompatible with all existing Windows Phone 7 devices, although it still supported apps originally developed for Windows Phone 7. In 2014, Microsoft released the Windows Phone 8.1 update, which introduced the Cortana virtual assistant, and Windows Runtime platform support to create cross-platform apps between Windows PCs and Windows Phone.

In 2015, Microsoft released Windows 10 Mobile, which promoted increased integration and unification with its PC counterpart, including the ability to connect devices to an external display or docking station to display a PC-like interface. Although Microsoft dropped the Windows Phone brand at this time in order to focus more on synergies with Windows 10 for PCs, it was still a continuation of the Windows Phone line from a technical standpoint, and updates were issued for selected Windows Phone 8.1 devices. (Full article...)

List of phone types
Payphone Courtesy telephone Emergency telephone Secure telephone Smartphone Mobile phone Satellite phone Phablet Car 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. This allowed 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 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 master telephone patent granted to Bell, 174465, March 10, 1876 (from History of the telephone)
Image 2The original Apple iPhone; following its introduction the common smartphone form factor shifted to large touchscreen software interfaces without physical keypads (from Smartphone)
Image 3The 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 4People using phones while walking (from Mobile phone)
Image 5
Bell prototype telephone stamp
Centennial Issue of 1976
(from History of the telephone)
Image 6Thomas Edison invented the carbon microphone which produced a strong telephone signal. (from History of the telephone)
Image 7Mobile payment system. (from Smartphone)
Image 8A smartphone touchscreen (from Smartphone)
Image 9A German rotary dial telephone, the W48 (from History of the telephone)
Image 10Philipp Reis, 1861, constructed the first telephone, today called the Reis telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 11Mobile phone subscribers per 100 inhabitants. 2014 figure is estimated. (from Mobile phone)
Image 12Historical marker commemorating the first telephone central office in New York State (1878) (from History of the telephone)
Image 13This 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 14Two decades of evolution of mobile phones, from a 1992 Motorola 8900X-2 to the 2014 iPhone 6 Plus (from Mobile phone)
Image 15IBM Simon and charging base (1994) (from Smartphone)
Image 16Inserted memory and SIM cards (from Smartphone)
Image 17Android smartphones (from Mobile phone)
Image 18Mobile/desktop convergence: the Librem 5 smartphone can be used as a basic desktop computer (from Smartphone)
Image 19Elisha Gray, 1876, designed a telephone using a water microphone in Highland Park, Illinois. (from History of the telephone)
Image 20The Nokia 9110 Communicator, opened for access to keyboard (from Smartphone)
Image 21Typical mobile phone mini-SIM card (from Mobile phone)
Image 22Mobile payment system (from Mobile phone)
Image 23A user consulting a mapping app on a phone (from Smartphone)
Image 24Cellular networks work by only reusing radio frequencies (in this example frequencies f1-f4) in non adjacent cells to avoid interference (from Mobile phone)
Image 25A Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus, featuring a "hole-punch" camera (from Smartphone)
Image 26"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 27Antonio Meucci, 1854, constructed telephone-like devices. (from History of the telephone)
Image 28Old Receiver schematic, c.1906 (from History of the telephone)
Image 29Active mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants (from Mobile phone)
Image 30Private conversation, 1910 (from History of the telephone)
Image 31Actor 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 32Tivadar Puskás proposed the telephone switchboard exchange in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 33A 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 34Several BlackBerry smartphones, which were highly popular in the mid-late 2000s (from Smartphone)
Image 35A text message (SMS) (from Mobile phone)
Image 36A 19th century acoustic tin can or "lovers' telephone" (from History of the telephone)
Image 37Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 38The back of a Huawei P30. It features three rear-facing camera lenses with Leica optics. (from Smartphone)
Image 39Optical track pad sensor of an HTC Legend, 2010. (from Smartphone)
Image 40Personal Handy-phone System mobiles and modems, 1997–2003 (from Mobile phone)
Image 41A driver using two handheld mobile phones at once (from Mobile phone)
Image 42Martin 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 43A French Gower telephone of 1912 at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris (from History of the telephone)
Image 44The HTC Desire, a 2010 smartphone with optical trackpad and search button (from Smartphone)
Image 45Scrapped mobile phones (from Mobile phone)
Image 46Smartphone with infrared transmitter on top for use as remote control (from Smartphone)
Image 47A smartphone displaying the homepage of the English Wikipedia (from Smartphone)
Image 48A New York City driver holding two phones (from Smartphone)
Image 49A 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 50The LG Prada with a large capacitive touchscreen introduced in 2006 (from Smartphone)
Image 51A high-capacity portable battery charger (power bank) (from Smartphone)
Image 52Top of cellular telephone tower (from History of the telephone)
Image 53Tooltip 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 54Antonio Meucci's telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 55Apple iPhone smartphone (from History of the telephone)
Image 56Dupuis and Haug during a GSM meeting in Belgium, April 1992 (from Mobile phone)
Image 57The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. In 1983, it became the first commercially available handheld cellular mobile phone. (from Mobile phone)
Image 58E-waste in Agbogbloshie (from Smartphone)
Image 591896 Telephone (Sweden) (from History of the telephone)
Image 60A Meizu MX4 with Flyme OS (from Smartphone)
Image 61A Moto G7 Power; its display uses a tall aspect ratio and includes a "notch". (from Smartphone)
Image 621917 wall telephone, open to show magneto and local battery (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 1Emergency telephones, on the Paris-Bordeaux railway line, Saint-Saviol station, Vienne, France
Image 2An Italian gettone telefonico (telephone token) from 1945, which was used in Italian phone booths
Image 3A Western Electric candlestick phone from the 1920s
Image 4A police box outside Earl's Court tube station in London, built in 1996 and based on the 1929 Gilbert Mackenzie Trench design
Image 5Telephone booth box art outside the Tower of London, 2012
Image 6A historic telephone booth in Skansen, Stockholm
Image 7Landline call blocking in use
Image 8A Northern Electric telephone, model number N415H, circa 1950 (probably)
Image 9A 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 10A Bell Canada payphone with digital display
Image 11An example of a K6, the most common red telephone box model, photographed in London in 2012
Image 12The AUTOVON was a worldwide American military telephone system that was built starting in 1963.
Image 13Automatic electric Rotary dial telephone
Image 14Photograph 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 15Rotary dial telephone, probably from Belgium; the circuit diagram inside is in Dutch and French
Image 16Rotary dial telephone, probably from Belgium; the circuit diagram inside is in Dutch and French
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 18Apple iPhones
Image 19Track-side emergency brake and emergency telephones at the platform of the metro station Aspern Nord, Donaustadt, Vienna, Austria
Image 20Android smartphones
Image 21A cordless phone
Image 22Public telephone, Bucharest, Romania
Image 23A Funke + Huster telephone inside the Idrija Mine, Slovenia
Image 24Acoustic telephone ad, The Consolidated Telephone Co., Jersey City, New Jersey, 1886
Image 25Wooden wall telephone with a hand-cranked magneto generator
Image 26Mailbox and public telephone in Haßfurt, Germany
Image 27Push-button telephone
Image 28Foldable smartphones

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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