The device operates principally by converting sound waves into electrical signals, and electrical signals into sound waves. Such signals when conveyed through telephone networks — and often converted to electronic and/or optical signals — enable nearly every telephone user to communicate with nearly every other worldwide.
Credit for the invention of the electric telephone is frequently disputed, and new controversies over the issue have arisen from time-to-time. As with other great inventions such as radio, television, light bulb, and computer, there were several inventors who did pioneering experimental work on voice transmission over a wire and improved on each other's ideas. Innocenzo Manzetti, Antonio Meucci, Johann Philipp Reis, Elisha Gray, Alexander Graham Bell, and Thomas Edison, among others, have all been credited with pioneering work on the telephone. An undisputed fact is that Alexander Graham Bell was the first to be awarded a patent for the electric telephone by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in March 1876. That first patent by Bell was the master patent of the telephone, from which all other patents for electric telephone devices and features flowed.
A traditional landline telephone system, also known as "plain old telephone service" (POTS), commonly handles both signaling and audio information on the same twisted pair of insulated wires: the telephone line. Although originally designed for voice communication, the system has been adapted for data communication such as Telex, Fax and Internet communication. The signaling equipment consists of a bell, beeper, light or other device to alert the user to incoming calls, and number buttons or a rotary dial to enter a telephone number for outgoing calls. A twisted pair line is preferred as it is more effective at rejecting electromagnetic interference (EMI) and crosstalk than an untwisted pair.
Early telephones were technically diverse. Some used a liquid transmitter, some had a metal diaphragm that induced current in an electromagnet wound around a permanent magnet, and some were "dynamic" - their diaphragm vibrated a coil of wire in the field of a permanent magnet or the coil vibrated the diaphragm. The dynamic kind survived in small numbers through the 20th century in military and maritime applications where its ability to create its own electrical power was crucial. Most, however, used the Edison/Berliner carbon transmitter, which was much louder than the other kinds, even though it required an induction coil, actually acting as an impedance matching transformer to make it compatible to the impedance of the line. The Edison patents kept the Bell monopoly viable into the 20th century, by which time the network was more important than the instrument.
Signalling began in an appropriately primitive manner. The user alerted the other end, or the exchange operator, by whistling into the transmitter. Exchange operation soon resulted in telephones being equipped with a bell, first operated over a second wire, and later over the same wire, but with a condenser (capacitor) in series with the bell coil to allow the AC ringer signal through while still blocking DC (keeping the phone "on hook"). Telephones connected to the earliest Strowger automatic exchanges had seven wires, one for the knife switch, one for each telegraph key, one for the bell, one for the push button and two for speaking.
Internet Protocol (IP) telephony (also known as Voice over Internet Protocol, VoIP), is a disruptive technology that is rapidly gaining ground against traditional telephone network technologies. As of January 2005, up to 10% of telephone subscribers in Japan and South Korea have switched to this digital telephone service. A January 2005 Newsweek article suggested that Internet telephony may be "the next big thing." [1] As of 2006 many VoIP companies offer service to consumers and businesses.
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