Portal:Telephones

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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 Greek: τῆλε (tēle, 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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Snapdragon is a suite of system-on-a-chip (SoC) semiconductor products for mobile devices designed and marketed by Qualcomm Technologies Inc. The Snapdragon's central processing unit (CPU) uses the ARM architecture. As such, Qualcomm often refers to the Snapdragon as a "mobile platform". Snapdragon semiconductors are embedded in devices of various systems, including vehicles, Android, Windows Phone and netbooks. In addition to the processors, the Snapdragon line includes modems, Wi-Fi chips and mobile charging products.

The Snapdragon QSD8250 was released in December 2007. It included the first 1 GHz processor for mobile phones. Qualcomm introduced its "Krait" microarchitecture in the second generation of Snapdragon SoCs in 2011, allowing each processor core to adjust its speed based on the device's needs. At the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show, Qualcomm introduced the first of the Snapdragon 800 series and renamed prior models as the 200, 400 and 600 series. Several new iterations have been introduced since, such as the Snapdragon 805, 810, 615 and 410. Qualcomm re-branded its modem products under the Snapdragon name in February 2015. Asus, HP and Lenovo have begun selling laptops with Snapdragon-based CPUs running Windows 10 under the name "Always Connected PCs", marking an entry into the PC market for Qualcomm and the ARM architecture. (Full article...)

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*Get Smart* character Maxwell Smart (Don Adams) using his signature shoe phone

A shoe phone is a shoe that has a telephone within it. Though there is no specific evidence that spies or those involved in espionage actually used shoe phones, they were popularised by fictional spies in television shows, most notably the television series Get Smart. Modern mobile phone technology has allowed for the development and production of working shoe phones. (Full article...)

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USA Red Boxing Tone

The .25 USD tone sequence.

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A red box is a phreaking device that generates tones to simulate inserting coins in pay phones, thus fooling the system into completing free calls. In the United States, a nickel is represented by one tone, a dime by two, and a quarter by a set of five. Any device capable of playing back recorded sounds can potentially be used as a red box. Commonly used devices include modified Radio Shack tone dialers, personal MP3 players, and audio-recording greeting cards. (Full article...)

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

Image 1Active mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants (from Mobile phone)
Image 2A 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 3Private conversation, 1910 (from History of the telephone)
Image 4This 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 51896 Telephone (Sweden) (from History of the telephone)
Image 6A New York City driver holding two phones (from Smartphone)
Image 7Elisha Gray, 1876, designed a telephone using a water microphone in Highland Park, Illinois. (from History of the telephone)
Image 8Thomas Edison invented the carbon microphone which produced a strong telephone signal. (from History of the telephone)
Image 9Optical track pad sensor of an HTC Legend, 2010. (from Smartphone)
Image 10Inserted memory and SIM cards (from Smartphone)
Image 11Martin 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 12Typical mobile phone mini-SIM card (from Mobile phone)
Image 13The HTC Desire, a 2010 smartphone with optical trackpad and search button (from Smartphone)
Image 14A French Gower telephone of 1912 at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris (from History of the telephone)
Image 15IBM Simon and charging base (1994) (from Smartphone)
Image 16A German rotary dial telephone, the W48 (from History of the telephone)
Image 17A driver using two handheld mobile phones at once (from Mobile phone)
Image 18Tivadar Puskás proposed the telephone switchboard exchange in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 19A 19th century acoustic tin can or "lovers' telephone" (from History of the telephone)
Image 20A 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 21"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 22Top of cellular telephone tower (from History of the telephone)
Image 23Several BlackBerry smartphones, which were highly popular in the mid-late 2000s (from Smartphone)
Image 24Mobile payment system (from Mobile phone)
Image 25A Meizu MX4 with Flyme OS (from Smartphone)
Image 26People using phones while walking (from Mobile phone)
Image 27Personal Handy-phone System mobiles and modems, 1997–2003 (from Mobile phone)
Image 28Historical marker commemorating the first telephone central office in New York State (1878) (from History of the telephone)
Image 29Mobile payment system. (from Smartphone)
Image 30Two decades of evolution of mobile phones, from a 1992 Motorola 8900X-2 to the 2014 iPhone 6 Plus (from Mobile phone)
Image 31Cellular networks work by only reusing radio frequencies (in this example frequencies f1-f4) in non adjacent cells to avoid interference (from Mobile phone)
Image 32The 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 33Tooltip 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 34Antonio Meucci's telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 35E-waste in Agbogbloshie (from Smartphone)
Image 36Mobile phone subscribers per 100 inhabitants. 2014 figure is estimated. (from Mobile phone)
Image 37Android smartphones (from Mobile phone)
Image 38A smartphone touchscreen (from Smartphone)
Image 391917 wall telephone, open to show magneto and local battery (from History of the telephone)
Image 40The master telephone patent granted to Bell, 174465, March 10, 1876 (from History of the telephone)
Image 41Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 42The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. In 1983, it became the first commercially available handheld cellular mobile phone. (from Mobile phone)
Image 43Old Receiver schematic, c.1906 (from History of the telephone)
Image 44Dupuis and Haug during a GSM meeting in Belgium, April 1992 (from Mobile phone)
Image 45The LG Prada with a large capacitive touchscreen introduced in 2006 (from Smartphone)
Image 46The original Apple iPhone; following its introduction the common smartphone form factor shifted to large touchscreen software interfaces without physical keypads (from Smartphone)
Image 47A user consulting a mapping app on a phone (from Smartphone)
Image 48A Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus, featuring a "hole-punch" camera (from Smartphone)
Image 49A Moto G7 Power; its display uses a tall aspect ratio and includes a "notch". (from Smartphone)
Image 50
Bell prototype telephone stamp
Centennial Issue of 1976
(from History of the telephone)
Image 51Mobile/desktop convergence: the Librem 5 smartphone can be used as a basic desktop computer (from Smartphone)
Image 52Apple iPhone smartphone (from History of the telephone)
Image 53The back of a Huawei P30. It features three rear-facing camera lenses with Leica optics. (from Smartphone)
Image 54Antonio Meucci, 1854, constructed telephone-like devices. (from History of the telephone)
Image 55Philipp Reis, 1861, constructed the first telephone, today called the Reis telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 56A high-capacity portable battery charger (power bank) (from Smartphone)
Image 57A smartphone displaying the homepage of the English Wikipedia (from Smartphone)
Image 58The Nokia 9110 Communicator, opened for access to keyboard (from Smartphone)
Image 59Smartphone with infrared transmitter on top for use as remote control (from Smartphone)
Image 60Actor 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 61A text message (SMS) (from Mobile phone)
Image 62Scrapped mobile phones (from Mobile phone)

Selected biography

Anthony Pollok (c. 1829 – July 4, 1898) was an American patent attorney who, with Marcellus Bailey, helped prepare Alexander Graham Bell's patents for the telephone and related inventions. (Full article...)

List of selected biographies
Alexander Graham Bell Thomas Edison Innocenzo Manzetti Charles Bourseul Johann Philipp Reis Antonio Meucci Tivadar Puskás Douglas H. Ring W. Rae Young Martin Cooper (inventor) Thomas Cowherd Gardiner Greene Hubbard Thomas A. Watson Elisha Gray George Sweigert Pat Fleet John Draper

Selected images

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

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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