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...)

A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable 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 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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A voicemail system (also known as voice message or voice bank) is a computer-based system that allows callers to leave a recorded message when the recipient has been unable (or unwilling) to answer the phone. Calls may be directed to voicemail manually or automatically. The caller is prompted to leave a message that the recipient can retrieve at a later time.

Voicemail can be used for personal calls, but more complex systems exist for companies and services to handle the volume of customer requests. The term is also used more broadly to denote any system of conveying stored telecommunications voice messages, including using older technology like answering machines. (Full article...)

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A golden telephone is a rotary telephone made of or plated with gold. It is popularly associated with opulent decadence, representing power, wealth and elitism. Golden telephone sets were notably presented to Pope Pius XI in 1930 and to the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1957. (Full article...)

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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 text message (SMS) (from Mobile phone)
Image 3Martin 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 4A driver using two handheld mobile phones at once (from Mobile phone)
Image 51896 telephone (Sweden) (from History of the telephone)
Image 6Tivadar Puskás proposed the telephone switchboard exchange in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 7Mobile payment system. (from Smartphone)
Image 8Actor 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 9Replica of the telettrofono at Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci of Milan, Italy, invented by Antonio Meucci and credited by several sources as the first telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 10Inserted memory and SIM cards (from Smartphone)
Image 11Tooltip 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 12Smartphone with infrared transmitter on top for use as remote control (from Smartphone)
Image 13Mobile phone subscribers per 100 inhabitants. 2014 figure is estimated. (from Mobile phone)
Image 14Antonio Meucci, 1849, developing a voice-communication apparatus that several sources credit as the first telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 15The master telephone patent granted to Bell, 174465, March 7, 1876 (from History of the telephone)
Image 16Dupuis and Haug during a GSM meeting in Belgium, April 1992 (from Mobile phone)
Image 17A Nexus 6, an Android smartphone, displaying the Main Page of the English Wikipedia (from Smartphone)
Image 18Cellular networks work by only reusing radio frequencies (in this example frequencies f1–f4) in non adjacent cells to avoid interference (from Mobile phone)
Image 19
Bell prototype telephone stamp
Centennial Issue of 1976
(from History of the telephone)
Image 20Historical marker commemorating the first telephone central office in New York State (1878) (from History of the telephone)
Image 21Elisha Gray, 1876, designed a telephone using a water microphone in Highland Park, Illinois. (from History of the telephone)
Image 22The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. In 1983, it became the first commercially available handheld cellular mobile phone. (from Mobile phone)
Image 23Private conversation, 1910 (from History of the telephone)
Image 24Philipp Reis, 1861, constructed the first telephone, today called the Reis telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 25Android smartphones (from Mobile phone)
Image 26Apple iPhone smartphone (from History of the telephone)
Image 27Scrapped mobile phones (from Mobile phone)
Image 28Mobile payment system (from Mobile phone)
Image 29Reis's telephone around 1861, first device called telephone (from History of the telephone)
Image 30Typical mobile phone mini-SIM card (from Mobile phone)
Image 31Receiver schematic, c.1906 (from History of the telephone)
Image 32"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 33Personal Handy-phone System mobiles and modems, 1997–2003 (from Mobile phone)
Image 34The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra has an artificial intelligence-powered feature (from Smartphone)
Image 35A user consulting a mapping app on a phone (from Smartphone)
Image 36E-waste in Agbogbloshie (from Smartphone)
Image 37Innocenzo Manzetti considered the idea of a telephone in 1844 (from History of the telephone)
Image 38Optical track pad sensor of an HTC Legend, 2010. (from Smartphone)
Image 39A New York City driver holding two phones (from Smartphone)
Image 40People using phones while walking (from Mobile phone)
Image 41Top of cellular telephone tower (from History of the telephone)
Image 42Two decades of evolution of mobile phones, from a 1992 Motorola DynaTAC 8000X to the 2014 iPhone 6 Plus (from Mobile phone)
Image 43Active mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants (from Mobile phone)
Image 44A high-capacity portable battery charger (power bank) (from Smartphone)
Image 451917 wall telephone, open to show magneto and local battery (from History of the telephone)
Image 46A smartphone touchscreen (from Smartphone)
Image 47A 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 48A 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 49Thomas Edison invented the carbon microphone which produced a strong telephone signal. (from History of the telephone)
Image 50The HTC Desire, a 2010 smartphone with optical trackpad and search button (from Smartphone)
Image 51A French Gower telephone of 1912 at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris (from History of the telephone)
Image 52A 19th century acoustic tin can or "lovers' telephone" (from History of the telephone)
Image 53Alexander 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...)

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Selected images

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

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Telephones in the news

5 September 2025 – Anglophone Crisis: A roadside bomb kills seven Cameroonian soldiers in the Southwest Region. An English-speaking separatist group claims responsibility for the bombing. (ABC News)
3 September 2025 – 2025 Thai political crisis, 2025 Cambodian–Thai border crisis: The ruling Pheu Thai Party of the acting government of Thailand moves to dissolve the parliament, setting up for a new election, after Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra was dismissed from office due to her phone call leak with Cambodia. (DW)
29 August 2025 – 2025 Thai political crisis: The Thai Constitutional Court removes Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra from office for ethical misconduct over leaked phone calls she had with former Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen. (Al Jazeera) (BBC News)

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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