sim·ple /ˈsimpəl/ adjective
1. easily understood or done; presenting no difficulty.
"a simple solution"

Ericophone 1956

Keep it
simple.

Ericofon 1956

Technology: In the beginning ...

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Eletelephony by Laura Richards
Munk2 Once there was an elephant, Who tried to use the telephant.No! No! I mean an elephone Who tried to use the telephone. (Dear me! I am not certain quite That even now I’ve got it right.) Howe’er it was, he got his trunk Entangled in the telephunk. The more he tried to get it free, The louder buzzed the telephee. (I fear I’d better drop the song Of elephop and telephong!)

The Telephone - I can hear you now

excerpted from itpa "History of the Telephone"

  • 1874 - Principal of the telephone was uncovered.
  • 1876 - Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone, beating Elisha Gray by a matter of hours.
  • 1877 - The very first permanent outdoor telephone wire was completed. It stretched a distance of just three miles. This was closely followed in the U.S. by the worlds first commercial telephone service.
  • 1878 - The workable exchange was developed, which enabled calls to be switched between subscribers rather than having direct lines.
  • 1879 - Subscribers began to be designated by numbers and not their names.
  • 1880's - Long distance service expanded throughout this period using metallic circuits.
  • 1888 - Common battery system developed by Hammond V. Hayes, allows one central battery to power all telephones on an exchange, rather than relying on each units own battery.
  • 1891 - First automatic dialing system invented by a Kansas City undertaker. He believed that crooked operators were sending his potential customers elsewhere. It was his aim to get rid of the operators altogether.
  • 1900 - First coin operated telephone installed in Hartford, Connecticut.
  • 1904 - "French Phone" developed by the Bell Company. This had the transmitter and receiver in a simple handset.
  • 1911 - American Telephone and Telegraph (AT & T) acquire the Western Union Telegraph Company in a hostile takeover. They purchased stocks in the company covertly and the two eventually merged.
  • 1918 - It was estimated that approximately ten million Bell system telephones were in service throughout the U.S.
  • 1921 - The switching of large numbers of calls was made possible through the use of phantom circuits. This allowed three conversations to take place on two pairs of wires.
  • 1927 - First transatlantic service from New York to London became operational. The signal was transmitted by radio waves.
  • 1936 - Research into electronic telephone exchanges began and was eventually perfected in the 1960's with the electronic switching system (SES).
  • 1946 - Worlds first commercial mobile phone service put into operation. It could link moving vehicles to a telephone network via radio waves.
  • 1947 - Microwave radio technology used for the first time for long distance phone calls.
  • 1947 - The transistor was invented at Bell laboratories.
  • 1955 - Saw the beginning of the laying of transatlantic telephone cables.
  • 1962 - The worlds first international communications satellite, Telstar was launched.
  • 1980's - The development of fibre optic cables during this decade, offered the potential to carry much larger volumes of calls than satellite or microwaves.
  • 1980's, 1990's, to present - Huge advances in micro electronic technology over the last two decades have enabled the development of cellular (mobile) phones to advance at a truly astonishing rate. A cellular (mobile) phone has its own central transmitter allowing it to receive seamless transmissions as it enters and exits a cell.

The Munk3