The Telephone

 

Such a remarkable piece of technology that began with a terrific humble life.  While the patent and early experiments began in 1876 with Alexander Graham Bell (yes, we are aware that another individual named Elisha Gray is arguably the inventor or mother of the telephone, however Bell’s pursuit to obtain a patent earned him the historical figure of fame), it forwarded the development of an electrified, two-way communication that we all take for granted.

The early 1900s saw a few carryover book and ringer phones with a microphone cone on the box with a couple small bells for the ringer and a separate, corded handheld earpiece.  These phones had a battery and later used a winding crank to send voltage to a local switchboard office wherein the caller would request the switchboard operator to either personally request a name, a phone “address number”, or request the business entity.  Fulfilling the request of the caller, the operator would then have patch cables which would connect the caller’s telephone line to the receiver’s line to make the true connection for the parties.

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In equal beginnings, the pay telephone actually began in 1889 as a post pay telephone when the inventor William Gray was not permitted to use people’s telephones to call the local doctor to aid his ill wife.  This honor system or post pay telephone quickly turned to a prepay telephone, which most may recognize, in 1898 that we commonly refer to as the pay telephone.  It first arrived in Chicago, Illinois and in 1902, there were approximately 81,000 pay telephones installed across the United States alone.  The booths and telephones transformed over the years from simple coin operated rotary dial telephones hung along commercial walls, such as transportation hubs, or the exterior wooden booths into more standardized metal and glass booths or fascia’s easily recognizable for those seeking to make a call during business trips, quick calls home, or to order a take-out meal.

(Photo Courtesy: https://oldphoneworks.com/products/vintage-automatic-electric-3-slot-payphone and https://www.telephonetribute.com/payphones.html)

(Photo Courtesy: https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/a-tribute-to-the-now-romantic-phone-booth-4707777.php; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payphone; and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_booth#/media/File:ClassicTelephoneBooth.jpg)

While this was old technology and like our modern saying, “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” the newer models were much smaller and resembled a candlestick with the top having the microphone end and the familiar corded earpiece.  Though a much smaller footprint, this telephone set operated identically to the box to contact the operator except that the caller would tap the cradle or hook, where the earpiece would rest, a few times to denote to the operator that they were “calling” them to then request the connection to the receiving end.

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These two types of phones were the base models of the telephones.  An upgraded model contained a rotary dial which the caller would fulfill their own connection request to the receiving party.  The caller or dialer would place their finger in the appropriate number’s hole and spin the rotary against a spring tension to the small bar to stop.  The spring would release, dialing the number, then the next number would be spun, and so on until you reached your callset of numbers.  The pulses contained in each number represented one-tenth of a second and the number of those pulses represented the number.  For example dialing 4 equated to 4, one-tenth of a second pulses, which the telephone office recognized as 4.

With the invention of the rotary dial came the equal invention of the dial-tone which is actually two simultaneous tones of 350 and 440 hertz, heard in the earpiece when the handheld earpiece was removed from the hook or cradle.  This closed the telephone loop or circuit which announced or signaled the caller to begin the dialing portion to make the final connection.  Much like any marketed item, the phone design changed to decorate the home or office as the generations and eras moved on to include the multi-line phones for businesses and even adapted intercoms into the telephones to provide inner calls or announcements as necessary.

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The next significant advancement on the telephone was not secured until the 1960s when the touch tone made its debut.  This innovation improved dialing speeds while improving efficiencies, moreso for the business arena, to include a few reduced hang-up and redial errors.  The push button system utilized another dual-tone system with each button given a specific dual-tone frequency, a low and high frequency combined which were translated at the telephone office as numbers to connect the caller to the intended receiver.

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Along with the advancements of the keypad dialer came the advancements of the ringers.  While most low-cost telephones relied on the “base model” dual-bell and clapper mechanism which was operated via an alternating current to attract a magnet in either direction which equally attracted the metal clapper to strike one bell, then the other (much like the early bell alarm clocks of yesteryear).  The ringers became more advanced with beeps, toned bleeps equating to ringers, and such.

Since the telephone was advancing, so were the telephone switchboards and the cabling.  The public switched telephone network (PSTN) relied on local cabling and trunked systems which consolidated the communications from several callers, called multiplexing, to only a few wires, which traversed the miles of cabling, to the next central office which would demultiplex the various callers and put them on the local network’s system.  Repeaters were necessary along the cabling to continue the electric and voiced communications from the caller to the receiver, including transoceanic receivers.

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The initial telephone offices or exchanges relied heavily on people staffing the switchboard to make the connections from caller to the receiver.  As the technology of the phone advanced, the telephone exchanges equally advanced from people to electromechanical switches, via the dialing of the caller’s telephone, closing the circuits to reach the intended receiver.  Combined with the trunking of the cabling and the increase in customers, both homes and businesses, came the birth of area and local numbers in 1947 by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T).

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Prior to the area code, the lettering we see just above each number was meant to aid locality and the customer’s assigned number (telephone number).  For instance, in the following photograph we see a number for Atlantic City 4-5876.  The first two letters (AT) of the city were used to dial the remaining numbers.  The ultimate telephone number is then 284-5876.  As customers expanded exponentially, the necessity from AT&T to create an area code for states and portions within the state was birthed.  Consequently as communications within each country grew, so did the need to connect the world.  Thus, as stated earlier, the transoceanic cabling was realized and later occurred so that government and businesses could communicate with the world.  One thing to note is that telegraph cables were already in service as far back as 1866, however the realization to both reuse these cables and, later, add more transoceanic cables was not realized until the late 1920s as the inter-use of terrestrial radio combined with the telephone system was established.

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As the telephone system expanded internationally, the need for country dialing codes was required to connect one country’s caller to another country’s receiver.  While a few research sites tend to specify the International Telecoms Union being birthed in the mid-1850s and later changing to its current name in the mid to late 1940s, it was not until 1964 that assigned international country code numbers in the Consultative Committee for International Telephony (CCITT) blue book.

Wireless Communications:

Not comfortable with being tied to a cable, the mobile telephone system (MTS) was introduced by AT&T by connecting the radio signal to the PSTN.  Though a cumbersome product, this became the ancestor of what we would know as cellular or mobile telephone systems.  The cumbersome part of it was that the caller or user would need to tune the radioset to an unused frequency (opposite of tuning in your AM or FM radio station), then the caller would reach a mobile operator who would them dial or connect the radio to the receiver.  In combination, the caller would need to use a push-to-talk button, much like the CB radios, to speak.  It would not be until 1964 when AT&T created the improved mobile telephone service (IMTS) where the caller’s new mobile telephone could automatically channel search, could dial the receiver’s number, and be a full-duplex or two-way conversation.

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Equal to the radio frequency mobile telephones was another wireless communication in the form of microwave links which traverses the globe via a point-to-point systems in 1950.  With towers and antenna systems linking long-distance connection, this merely enabled connections when land pathways were not feasible.  Although not what the consumer may consider wireless, it did enable the research and later commission to utilize satellite communications.  Telstar 1 launched into orbit and resided at an altitude of 3,500 miles (medium Earth orbit) provided a single, one-way television signal or multiple two-way telephone communications.  While this was successful, it was intermittent as there were no consistent communication links as the satellite would move away or out of range of the ground station.  Enter in multiple satellites and ground relay stations to solve this puzzle along with advancements in technology from analog to digital microwaves systems in 1981.

Back to the mobile telephone topic we enter into what you and I understand as cellular telephone which was originally called the advanced mobile phone system (AMPS).  Through the combined efforts of AT&T and Motorola, the cell phone was publicly introduced in the city of Chicago in 1983.  While this was the United States’ cellular phone system, other countries had “beaten them to the punch” such as Japan’s system in 1979 and similar AMPS systems called the Nordic mobile telephone (NMT) in 1981 in the countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden.  In parallel with the United States, the United Kingdom introduced their total access communication system (TACS) in 1983.

Generations, as we know them, for the cell phones began with the 1980s version as first-generation (1G).  While 1G worked on analog systems, the advancement of the digital cell phones entered in the late 1980s with 2G.  Upon the digital advancements came the building foundations of what we now recognize as mobile computing to include messaging, data, image and video transmissions, etc.

(Photo Courtesy: https://www.britannica.com/technology/mobile-telephone)

Coupled with the cellular telephone comes the airborne cellular telephones where the calls were connected or relayed via satellites to ground stations and on to the telephone networks.  Along with the development of the wireless or cordless telephone developed in the early 1980s.  The ability to be untethered from the handset and freely walk around or sit in your favorite chair, inside or outside, gave the caller and possibly the receiver a feeling of freedom while talking and chatting.

It was not until the late 1990s when the public would see worldwide satellite mobile telephones known as Iridium phones.  While it took a full year to launch the satellite network, service did not begin until November 1998.  While expensive to operate, especially to the consumer at $10 a minute, it did provide true global communications from desolate areas to the main office management or military theater commanders to their defense department leadership.

While the telephone itself has come miles away from its original design as a hollow wooden box with cones and a couple bells to a handheld computer, it is a revolutionary communications device that we dare not live without.  One must admit, however that during the 1980s, the freedom to step away from the normal consumer and very limited telephone design to cartoon characters, animals, vehicles, transparent, and several other creative designs that made telephone calls that more sought after so that we could utilize that iconic phone.

Personally, my experience with the telephones is rather vast despite my age.  I paid close attention to early television shows and saw the early wooden box phones.  Yet, in my immediate family households, we began with the rotary dial telephones until the mid-1980s where we finally moved up to the pushbutton telephones.  Towards the late 1980s, we were purchasing and using modern handset phones, cordless phones, and my dear friend’s pickup truck shaped telephone.  My grandmother continued to have a rotary telephone until she passed away in late 1995.  In fact, you may think of me as the Zach Morris as I had the first mobile cellular car phone (a Uniden bag cell phone but with the car mounting and antenna components) in late 1993 inserted into my 1986 Plymouth Turismo.

What about you?  What are your memories of telephones?