Portal:Telephones

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The Telephones Portal

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 Ancient Greek: τῆλε, romanized: tēle, lit. '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.

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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Android is a mobile operating system based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and other open-source software, designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Android is developed by a consortium of developers known as the Open Handset Alliance, though its most widely used version is primarily developed by Google. It was unveiled in November 2007, with the first commercial Android device, the HTC Dream, being launched in September 2008.

At its core, the operating system is known as the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) and is free and open-source software (FOSS) primarily licensed under the Apache License. However, most devices run on the proprietary Android version developed by Google, which ships with additional proprietary closed-source software pre-installed, most notably Google Mobile Services (GMS) which includes core apps such as Google Chrome, the digital distribution platform Google Play, and the associated Google Play Services development platform. Firebase Cloud Messaging is used for push notifications. While AOSP is free, the "Android" name and logo are trademarks of Google, which imposes standards to restrict the use of Android branding by "uncertified" devices outside their ecosystem.

Over 70 percent of smartphones based on the Android Open Source Project run Google's ecosystem (which is known simply as Android), some with vendor-customized user interfaces and software suites, such as TouchWiz and later One UI by Samsung and HTC Sense. Competing ecosystems and forks of AOSP include Fire OS (developed by Amazon), ColorOS by Oppo, OriginOS by Vivo, MagicUI by Honor, or custom ROMs such as LineageOS. (Full article...)

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Field telephones are telephones used for military communications. They can draw power from their own battery, from a telephone exchange (via a central battery known as CB), or from an external power source. Some need no battery, being sound-powered telephones.

Field telephones replaced flag signals and the telegraph as an efficient means of communication. The first field telephones had a battery to power the voice transmission, a hand-cranked generator to signal another field telephone or a manually-operated telephone exchange, and an electromagnetic ringer which sounded when current from a remote generator arrived. This technology was used from the 1910s to the 1980s. Later the ring signal was operated by a pushbutton or automatically as on domestic telephones. Manual systems are still widely used, and are often compatible with the older equipment.

Shortly after the invention of the telephone, attempts were made to adapt the technology for military use. Telephones were already being used to support military campaigns in British India and in British colonies in Africa in the late 1870s and early 1880s. In the United States telephone lines connected fortresses with each other and with army headquarters. They were also used for fire control at fixed coastal defence installations. The first telephone for use in the field was developed in the United States in 1889 but it was too expensive for mass production. Subsequent developments in several countries made the field telephone more practicable. The wire material was changed from iron to copper, devices for laying wire in the field were developed and systems with both battery-operated sets for command posts and hand generator sets for use in the field were developed. The first purposely-designed field telephones were used by the British in the Second Boer War. They were used more extensively in the Russo-Japanese War, where all infantry regiments and artillery divisions on both sides were equipped with telephone sets. By the First World War the use of field telephones was widespread, and a start was made at intercepting them. (Full article...)

List of phone types
Payphone Courtesy telephone Emergency telephone Secure telephone Smartphone Mobile phone Satellite phone Phablet Car phone Windows Phone Camera phone Feature phone VoIP phone iPhone Tin can telephone Sound-powered telephone Grillo telephone Golden telephone Reis telephone Cordless telephone Shoe phone IBM Simon Mobile radio telephone Foldable smartphone Modular smartphone Prepaid mobile phone

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Example of a North American Off-hook tone

Listen to an off-hook tone from North America.

High Tone

Some central office switches in the United States, notably older GTD-5 EAX systems, utilize a single frequency tone, 480 Hz, known as High Tone for this purpose. Listen to an older 480Hz off-hook tone.

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The off-hook tone (also off-hook warning, howling tone, or howler tone) is a telephony signal for alerting a user that the telephone has been left off-hook without use for an extended period, effectively disabling the telephone line. (Full article...)

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

Image 1A German rotary dial telephone, the W48 (from History of the telephone)
Image 2A driver using two handheld mobile phones at once (from Mobile phone)
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 5Philipp Reis, 1861, constructed the first telephone, today called the Reis telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 6Private conversation, 1910 (from History of the telephone)
Image 7Cellular networks work by only reusing radio frequencies (in this example frequencies f1-f4) in non adjacent cells to avoid interference (from Mobile phone)
Image 8Martin 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 9Thomas Edison invented the carbon microphone which produced a strong telephone signal. (from History of the telephone)
Image 10Tooltip 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 11Top of cellular telephone tower (from History of the telephone)
Image 12The back of a Huawei P30. It features three rear-facing camera lenses with Leica optics. (from Smartphone)
Image 13The master telephone patent granted to Bell, 174465, March 10, 1876 (from History of the telephone)
Image 14A high-capacity portable battery charger (power bank) (from Smartphone)
Image 15Two decades of evolution of mobile phones, from a 1992 Motorola DynaTAC 8000X to the 2014 iPhone 6 Plus (from Mobile phone)
Image 16E-waste in Agbogbloshie (from Smartphone)
Image 17A 19th century acoustic tin can or "lovers' telephone" (from History of the telephone)
Image 18Dupuis and Haug during a GSM meeting in Belgium, April 1992 (from Mobile phone)
Image 19Scrapped mobile phones (from Mobile phone)
Image 20A Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus, featuring a "hole-punch" camera (from Smartphone)
Image 21Active mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants (from Mobile phone)
Image 22Mobile phone subscribers per 100 inhabitants. 2014 figure is estimated. (from Mobile phone)
Image 23Actor 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 24Old Receiver schematic, c.1906 (from History of the telephone)
Image 25A smartphone touchscreen (from Smartphone)
Image 26Mobile payment system (from Mobile phone)
Image 27Inserted memory and SIM cards (from Smartphone)
Image 28Mobile payment system. (from Smartphone)
Image 29A smartphone displaying the homepage of the English Wikipedia (from Smartphone)
Image 30The LG Prada with a large capacitive touchscreen introduced in 2006 (from Smartphone)
Image 31Historical marker commemorating the first telephone central office in New York State (1878) (from History of the telephone)
Image 32Antonio Meucci, 1854, constructed telephone-like devices. (from History of the telephone)
Image 33Elisha Gray, 1876, designed a telephone using a water microphone in Highland Park, Illinois. (from History of the telephone)
Image 34Personal Handy-phone System mobiles and modems, 1997–2003 (from Mobile phone)
Image 35A Moto G7 Power; its display uses a tall aspect ratio and includes a "notch". (from Smartphone)
Image 36Antonio Meucci's telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 37Optical track pad sensor of an HTC Legend, 2010. (from Smartphone)
Image 38The Nokia 9110 Communicator, opened for access to keyboard (from Smartphone)
Image 39
Bell prototype telephone stamp
Centennial Issue of 1976
(from History of the telephone)
Image 40A French Gower telephone of 1912 at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris (from History of the telephone)
Image 41The HTC Desire, a 2010 smartphone with optical trackpad and search button (from Smartphone)
Image 42Android smartphones (from Mobile phone)
Image 43A New York City driver holding two phones (from Smartphone)
Image 44The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. In 1983, it became the first commercially available handheld cellular mobile phone. (from Mobile phone)
Image 45This 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 46Several BlackBerry smartphones, which were highly popular in the mid-late 2000s (from Smartphone)
Image 47Smartphone with infrared transmitter on top for use as remote control (from Smartphone)
Image 48Mobile/desktop convergence: the Librem 5 smartphone can be used as a basic desktop computer (from Smartphone)
Image 49Apple iPhone smartphone (from History of the telephone)
Image 50"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 511917 wall telephone, open to show magneto and local battery (from History of the telephone)
Image 52Tivadar Puskás proposed the telephone switchboard exchange in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 53A 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 54Typical mobile phone mini-SIM card (from Mobile phone)
Image 551896 Telephone (Sweden) (from History of the telephone)
Image 56IBM Simon and charging base (1994) (from Smartphone)
Image 57A Meizu MX4 with Flyme OS (from Smartphone)
Image 58A text message (SMS) (from Mobile phone)
Image 59A 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 60The original Apple iPhone; following its introduction the common smartphone form factor shifted to large touchscreen software interfaces without physical keypads (from Smartphone)
Image 61A user consulting a mapping app on a phone (from Smartphone)
Image 62Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876. (from History of the telephone)

Selected biography

Meucci in 1878

Antonio Santi Giuseppe Meucci (/meɪˈuːtʃi/ may-OO-chee, Italian: [anˈtɔːnjo meˈuttʃi]; 13 April 1808 – 18 October 1889) was an Italian inventor and an associate of Giuseppe Garibaldi, a major political figure in the history of Italy. Meucci is best known for developing a voice-communication apparatus that several sources credit as the first telephone.

Meucci set up a form of voice-communication link in his Staten Island, New York, home that connected the second-floor bedroom to his laboratory. He submitted a patent caveat for his telephonic device to the U.S. Patent Office in 1871, but there was no mention of electromagnetic transmission of vocal sound in his caveat. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was granted a patent for the electromagnetic transmission of vocal sound by undulatory electric current. Despite the longstanding general crediting of Bell with the accomplishment, the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities supported celebrations of Meucci's 200th birthday in 2008 using the title "Inventore del telefono" (Inventor of the telephone). The U.S. House of Representatives in a resolution in 2002 also acknowledged Meucci's work in the invention of the telephone, although the U.S. Senate did not join the resolution and the interpretation of the resolution is disputed. (Full article...)

List of selected biographies
Alexander Graham Bell Thomas Edison Innocenzo Manzetti Charles Bourseul Johann Philipp Reis 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 1A cordless phone
Image 2Automatic electric Rotary dial telephone
Image 3Acoustic telephone ad, The Consolidated Telephone Co., Jersey City, New Jersey, 1886
Image 4Telephone booth box art outside the Tower of London, 2012
Image 5A Bell Canada payphone with digital display
Image 6Landline call blocking in use
Image 7Rotary dial telephone, probably from Belgium; the circuit diagram inside is in Dutch and French
Image 8A 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 9A Western Electric candlestick phone from the 1920s
Image 10A Northern Electric telephone, model number N415H, circa 1950 (probably)
Image 11A Funke + Huster telephone inside the Idrija Mine, Slovenia
Image 12Foldable smartphones
Image 13A historic telephone booth in Skansen, Stockholm
Image 14Public telephone, Bucharest, Romania
Image 15Android smartphones
Image 16Push-button telephone
Image 17An example of a K6, the most common red telephone box model, photographed in London in 2012
Image 18Wooden wall telephone with a hand-cranked magneto generator
Image 19Emergency telephones, on the Paris-Bordeaux railway line, Saint-Saviol station, Vienne, France
Image 20An Italian gettone telefonico (telephone token) from 1945, which was used in Italian phone booths
Image 21The AUTOVON was a worldwide American military telephone system that was built starting in 1963.
Image 22Apple iPhones
Image 23Mailbox and public telephone in Haßfurt, Germany
Image 24Historical telephone with the German imperial eagle and the heraldic shield of the House of Hohenzollern dynasty; Vollmer's Mill, Seebach, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
Image 25Track-side emergency brake and emergency telephones at the platform of the metro station Aspern Nord, Donaustadt, Vienna, Austria
Image 26A police box outside Earl's Court tube station in London, built in 1996 and based on the 1929 Gilbert Mackenzie Trench design
Image 27Photograph 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 28Rotary dial telephone, probably from Belgium; the circuit diagram inside is in Dutch and French

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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