Portal:Telephones

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A telephone, colloquially referred to as a 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, often called simply 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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This is a list of devices that run on the Android operating system. (Full article...)

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AT&T payphone in San Antonio, Texas in 2006

A payphone (alternative spelling: pay phone or pay telephone or public phone) is typically a coin-operated public telephone, often located in a telephone booth or in high-traffic public areas. Prepayment is required by inserting coins or telephone tokens, swiping a credit or debit card, or using a telephone card.

The company that operates the payphone generally pays either rent or a revenue share to the owner of the property where the phone is installed.

Invented in the late 19th century, payphones became ubiquitous worldwide in the 20th, enough to contribute to the notion of universal access to basic communication services. The charge for a call may be a flat rate, or dependent on call duration. Following the explosive growth of mobile telephony, the use of payphones, and the number installed, has decreased greatly. (Full article...)

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RO' SIT

Reorder – intraLATA

VC SIT

Unassigned N11 code, CLASS code or prefix

NC' SIT

No Circuit – intraLATA

IC SIT

Intercept

IO SIT

Ineffective/Other

Future SIT

Future Use (Not Used)

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In telephony, a special information tone (SIT) is an in-band international standard call progress tone consisting of three rising tones indicating a call has failed. It usually precedes a recorded announcement describing the problem. (Full article...)

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

Image 1Mobile phone subscribers per 100 inhabitants. 2014 figure is estimated. (from Mobile phone)
Image 2A German rotary dial telephone, the W48 (from History of the telephone)
Image 3IBM Simon and charging base (1994) (from Smartphone)
Image 4Actor 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 5Dupuis and Haug during a GSM meeting in Belgium, April 1992 (from Mobile phone)
Image 6This 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 7The Nokia 9110 Communicator, opened for access to keyboard (from Smartphone)
Image 8Inserted memory and SIM cards (from Smartphone)
Image 9Top of cellular telephone tower (from History of the telephone)
Image 10A 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 11Historical marker commemorating the first telephone central office in New York State (1878) (from History of the telephone)
Image 12
Bell prototype telephone stamp
Centennial Issue of 1976
(from History of the telephone)
Image 13A smartphone touchscreen (from Smartphone)
Image 14A Moto G7 Power; its display uses a tall aspect ratio and includes a "notch". (from Smartphone)
Image 151917 wall telephone, open to show magneto and local battery (from History of the telephone)
Image 16Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 17Receiver schematic, c.1906 (from History of the telephone)
Image 18Two decades of evolution of mobile phones, from a 1992 Motorola DynaTAC 8000X to the 2014 iPhone 6 Plus (from Mobile phone)
Image 19A Nexus 6, an Android smartphone, displaying the Main Page of the English Wikipedia (from Smartphone)
Image 20The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. In 1983, it became the first commercially available handheld cellular mobile phone. (from Mobile phone)
Image 21Mobile/desktop convergence: the Librem 5 smartphone can be used as a basic desktop computer (from Smartphone)
Image 22A Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus, featuring a "hole-punch" camera (from Smartphone)
Image 23Martin 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 24Antonio Meucci, 1854, constructed telephone-like devices. (from History of the telephone)
Image 25Personal Handy-phone System mobiles and modems, 1997–2003 (from Mobile phone)
Image 26People using phones while walking (from Mobile phone)
Image 27A 19th century acoustic tin can or "lovers' telephone" (from History of the telephone)
Image 28Active mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants (from Mobile phone)
Image 29A high-capacity portable battery charger (power bank) (from Smartphone)
Image 30Mobile payment system (from Mobile phone)
Image 31Philipp Reis, 1861, constructed the first telephone, today called the Reis telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 32Antonio Meucci's telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 33Elisha Gray, 1876, designed a telephone using a water microphone in Highland Park, Illinois. (from History of the telephone)
Image 34Thomas Edison invented the carbon microphone which produced a strong telephone signal. (from History of the telephone)
Image 35Android smartphones (from Mobile phone)
Image 36Optical track pad sensor of an HTC Legend, 2010. (from Smartphone)
Image 37A driver using two handheld mobile phones at once (from Mobile phone)
Image 38A user consulting a mapping app on a phone (from Smartphone)
Image 39Scrapped mobile phones (from Mobile phone)
Image 40The HTC Desire, a 2010 smartphone with optical trackpad and search button (from Smartphone)
Image 41The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra has an artificial intelligence-powered feature (from Smartphone)
Image 42Typical mobile phone mini-SIM card (from Mobile phone)
Image 43E-waste in Agbogbloshie (from Smartphone)
Image 44"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 45A 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 46A French Gower telephone of 1912 at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris (from History of the telephone)
Image 47Several BlackBerry smartphones, which were highly popular in the mid-late 2000s (from Smartphone)
Image 48A New York City driver holding two phones (from Smartphone)
Image 49Oppo Find X6 features software-based tuning co-developed with Hasselblad (from Smartphone)
Image 50Reis's telephone around 1861, first device called telephone (from History of the telephone)
Image 51A text message (SMS) (from Mobile phone)
Image 52Tivadar Puskás proposed the telephone switchboard exchange in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 53Smartphone with infrared transmitter on top for use as remote control (from Smartphone)
Image 54Cellular networks work by only reusing radio frequencies (in this example frequencies f1–f4) in non adjacent cells to avoid interference (from Mobile phone)
Image 55Tooltip 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 56Private conversation, 1910 (from History of the telephone)
Image 57The master telephone patent granted to Bell, 174465, March 7, 1876 (from History of the telephone)
Image 58The LG Prada with a large capacitive touchscreen introduced in 2006 (from Smartphone)
Image 59A Meizu MX4 with Flyme OS (from Smartphone)
Image 60Mobile payment system. (from Smartphone)
Image 61Xiaomi 13 Ultra featured a Leica Summicron camera system (from Smartphone)
Image 62The original Apple iPhone; following its introduction in 2007, the common smartphone form factor shifted to large touchscreen software interfaces without physical keypads (from Smartphone)
Image 631896 telephone (Sweden) (from History of the telephone)
Image 64Apple iPhone smartphone (from History of the telephone)

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Draper at Maker Faire Berlin, 2015

John Thomas Draper (born March 11, 1943), also known as Captain Crunch, Crunch, or Crunchman (after the Cap'n Crunch breakfast cereal mascot and the free toy plastic Cap'n Crunch bo'sun whistle used to hack phone calls), is an American computer programmer and former phone phreak. He is a widely known figure within the computer programming world and the hacker and security community, and generally lives a nomadic lifestyle. (Full article...)

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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 Anthony Pollok Thomas A. Watson Elisha Gray George Sweigert Pat Fleet

Selected images

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

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4 January 2025 – Anglophone Crisis: Gunmen from Nigeria kill at least five Cameroonian soldiers and injure several others in Bakinjaw, Southwest Region, Cameroon. (Reuters)

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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