Portal:Telephones

The Telephones Portal

A telephone, commonly shortened to phone, is a telecommunications device that enables two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into electronic signals that are transmitted via cables and other communication channels to another telephone which reproduces the sound to the receiving user. The term is derived from Ancient Greek: τῆλε, romanized: tēle, lit. 'far' and φωνή (phōnē, voice), together meaning distant voice.

In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was the first to be granted a United States patent for a device that produced clearly intelligible replication of the human voice at a second device. This instrument was further developed by many others, and became rapidly indispensable in business, government, and in households. (Full article...)

The Samsung Galaxy Z series are foldable smartphones.

A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable wireless telephone that allows users to make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones (landline phones). This radio frequency link connects to the switching systems of a mobile phone operator, providing access to the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Modern mobile telephony relies on a cellular network architecture, which is why mobile phones are often referred to as 'cell phones' in North America. (Full article...)

A smartphone is a mobile device that combines the functionality of a traditional mobile phone (feature 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. Smartphones are distinguished from older-design feature phones by their more advanced hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, access to the internet, business applications, mobile payments, and multimedia functionality, including music, video, gaming, radio, and television. (Full article...)

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Visitor centre at the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site

Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site is a 10-hectare (25-acre) property in Baddeck, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada, overlooking the Bras d'Or Lakes. The site is a unit of Parks Canada, the national park system, and includes the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site, which contains the largest repository of artifacts and documents from Bell's years of experimental work in Baddeck. This site was designated a National Historic Site in 1952. (Full article...)

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Modern emergency telephone powered by sound alone

A sound-powered telephone is a communication device that allows users to talk to each other with the use of a handset, similar to a conventional telephone, but without the use of external power. This technology has been used since at least 1944 for both routine and emergency communication on ships to allow communication between key locations on a vessel if power is unavailable. A sound-powered phone circuit can have two or more stations on the same circuit. The circuit is always live, thus a user begins speaking rather than dialing another station. Sound-powered telephones are not normally connected to a telephone exchange. (Full article...)

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Intercept tone played by The TeleZapper (plays 2 times)

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The TeleZapper is a device designed to reduce the number of telemarketing-related phone calls a household receives by imitating the tone signal normally played by a phone company to indicate a line has been disconnected. The Telezapper was created by Privacy Technologies. (Full article...)

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

Image 1The HTC Desire, a 2010 smartphone with optical trackpad and search button (from Smartphone)
Image 2A high-capacity portable battery charger (power bank) (from Smartphone)
Image 3A New York City driver holding two phones (from Smartphone)
Image 4Dupuis and Haug during a GSM meeting in Belgium, April 1992 (from Mobile phone)
Image 5Apple iPhone smartphone (from History of the telephone)
Image 6A German rotary dial telephone, the W48 (from History of the telephone)
Image 7Two decades of evolution of mobile phones, from a 1992 Motorola DynaTAC 8000X to the 2014 iPhone 6 Plus (from Mobile phone)
Image 8Mobile payment system (from Smartphone)
Image 9Android smartphones (from Mobile phone)
Image 10A 19th century acoustic tin can or "lovers' telephone" (from History of the telephone)
Image 11Blackview A60 Andoid Go mobile phone smartphone cell phone showing the front-facing camera is put in notch display (from Smartphone)
Image 12A French Gower telephone of 1912 at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris (from History of the telephone)
Image 13Receiver schematic, c.1906 (from History of the telephone)
Image 14Active mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants (from Mobile phone)
Image 15"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 16Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 17Historical marker commemorating the first telephone central office in New York State (1878) (from History of the telephone)
Image 18A 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 19A text message (SMS) (from Mobile phone)
Image 20
Bell prototype telephone stamp
Centennial Issue of 1976
(from History of the telephone)
Image 21A driver using two handheld mobile phones at once (from Mobile phone)
Image 22The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra has an artificial intelligence-powered feature. (from Smartphone)
Image 23Tivadar Puskás proposed the telephone switchboard exchange in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 24A pedestrian looking down at a smartphone while crossing a road (from Mobile phone)
Image 25A user consulting a mapping app on a phone (from Smartphone)
Image 26Tooltip 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 27Actor 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 281917 wall telephone, open to show magneto and local battery (from History of the telephone)
Image 29Smartphone with infrared transmitter on top for use as remote control (from Smartphone)
Image 30Cellular networks work by only reusing radio frequencies (in this example frequencies f1–f4) in non adjacent cells to avoid interference (from Mobile phone)
Image 311896 telephone (Sweden) (from History of the telephone)
Image 32A young woman speaking on a mobile phone in Copenhagen, 2025 (from Mobile phone)
Image 33Typical mobile phone mini-SIM card (from Mobile phone)
Image 34E-waste in Agbogbloshie (from Smartphone)
Image 35A smartphone touchscreen (from Smartphone)
Image 36Scrapped mobile phones (from Mobile phone)
Image 37Personal Handy-phone System mobiles and modems, 1997–2003 (from Mobile phone)
Image 38A Nexus 6, an Android smartphone, displaying the Main Page of the English Wikipedia (from Smartphone)
Image 39Top of cellular telephone tower (from History of the telephone)
Image 40The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. In 1983, it became the first commercially available handheld cellular mobile phone. (from Mobile phone)
Image 41Philipp Reis, 1861, constructed the first telephone, today called the Reis telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 42Mobile phone subscribers per 100 inhabitants. 2014 figure is estimated. (from Mobile phone)
Image 43Thomas Edison invented the carbon microphone which produced a strong telephone signal. (from History of the telephone)
Image 44Mobile payment system (from Mobile phone)
Image 45Inserted memory and SIM cards (from Smartphone)
Image 46A 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 47Optical track pad sensor of an HTC Legend, 2010 (from Smartphone)
Image 48Innocenzo Manzetti considered the idea of a telephone in 1844 (from History of the telephone)
Image 49Martin 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 50Private conversation, 1910 (from History of the telephone)

Selected biography

Elisha Gray (August 2, 1835 – January 21, 1901) was an American electrical engineer who co-founded the Western Electric Manufacturing Company. Gray is best known for his development of a telephone prototype in 1876 in Highland Park, Illinois. Some recent authors have argued that Gray should be considered the true inventor of the telephone because Alexander Graham Bell allegedly stole the idea of the liquid transmitter from him. Gray had been using liquid transmitters in his telephone experiments for more than two years previously; however, Bell's patent was upheld in court.

Gray is also considered to be the father of the modern music synthesizer, and was granted over 70 patents for his inventions. (Full article...)

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Selected images

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

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v t e Telephony
Types	Landline Mobile telephony Cable telephony Photophone
Accessories	Answering machine Caller ID
Connectivity	Cable protection system Cellular network Communications satellites Fibre-optical Free-space optical ISDN Mobile phone signal POTS PSTN Submarine cables Telecommunication circuit Telephone exchange Business telephone system Telephone network VoIP
Calls	Missed call Misdialed call Nuisance call Phone tag Call screening
Calling	Telephone Mobile phone Satellite phone Payphone Call setup Clearing Dialling Dial tone Direct distance dialing DTMF signaling International direct dialing Pulse dialing Push-button telephone Rotary dial Telephone keypad Operator assistance
Numbers	Telephone directory Telephone exchange names Telephone number Emergency telephone number Toll-free telephone number Telephone numbering plan Vertical service code
Applications	Fax transmission Telephone calls International call Local call Long-distance calling Telephone newspapers Théâtrophone Video calls
History	History of the telephone Invention of the telephone Timeline of the telephone History of mobile phones History of videotelephony Carrier telephony Party line Phreaking Telephone switchboard Switchboard operator
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