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 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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Pocket dialing (also known as pocket calling or butt dialing) is the accidental placement of a call on a mobile phone or cordless phone located in a person's pocket or handbag. The recipient of the call typically hears random background noise when answering the phone. If the caller remains unaware, the recipient will sometimes overhear whatever is happening in the caller's vicinity. A pocket-dialed call can continue for many minutes, or until the recipient's voice mail system ends the call.

The phrase "pocket dial" was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in August 2015. (Full article...)

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A VoIP phone or IP phone uses voice over IP technologies for placing and transmitting telephone calls over an IP network, such as the Internet. This is in contrast to a standard phone which uses the traditional public switched telephone network (PSTN).

Digital IP-based telephone service uses control protocols such as the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), Skinny Client Control Protocol (SCCP) or various other proprietary protocols. (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 1Antonio Meucci's telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 2Top of cellular telephone tower (from History of the telephone)
Image 3Apple iPhone smartphone (from History of the telephone)
Image 4
Bell prototype telephone stamp
Centennial Issue of 1976
(from History of the telephone)
Image 5A text message (SMS) (from Mobile phone)
Image 6A Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus, featuring a "hole-punch" camera (from Smartphone)
Image 7The 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 8Mobile payment system. (from Smartphone)
Image 9IBM Simon and charging base (1994) (from Smartphone)
Image 10Scrapped mobile phones (from Mobile phone)
Image 11A Meizu MX4 with Flyme OS (from Smartphone)
Image 12Two decades of evolution of mobile phones, from a 1992 Motorola DynaTAC 8000X to the 2014 iPhone 6 Plus (from Mobile phone)
Image 13A smartphone touchscreen (from Smartphone)
Image 14A 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 15Reis's telephone around 1861, first device called telephone (from History of the telephone)
Image 16The Nokia 9110 Communicator, opened for access to keyboard (from Smartphone)
Image 17Tooltip 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 18Active mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants (from Mobile phone)
Image 19Personal Handy-phone System mobiles and modems, 1997–2003 (from Mobile phone)
Image 20"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 21Antonio Meucci, 1854, constructed telephone-like devices. (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 23The LG Prada with a large capacitive touchscreen introduced in 2006 (from Smartphone)
Image 24Several BlackBerry smartphones, which were highly popular in the mid-late 2000s (from Smartphone)
Image 25A German rotary dial telephone, the W48 (from History of the telephone)
Image 26Oppo Find X6 features software-based tuning co-developed with Hasselblad (from Smartphone)
Image 27A Nexus 6, an Android smartphone, displaying the Main Page of the English Wikipedia (from Smartphone)
Image 28Private conversation, 1910 (from History of the telephone)
Image 29A 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 30A French Gower telephone of 1912 at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris (from History of the telephone)
Image 311896 telephone (Sweden) (from History of the telephone)
Image 32Tivadar Puskás proposed the telephone switchboard exchange in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 33A user consulting a mapping app on a phone (from Smartphone)
Image 34E-waste in Agbogbloshie (from Smartphone)
Image 35A driver using two handheld mobile phones at once (from Mobile phone)
Image 36Elisha Gray, 1876, designed a telephone using a water microphone in Highland Park, Illinois. (from History of the telephone)
Image 37Cellular networks work by only reusing radio frequencies (in this example frequencies f1–f4) in non adjacent cells to avoid interference (from Mobile phone)
Image 38Martin 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 39Mobile payment system (from Mobile phone)
Image 40Mobile/desktop convergence: the Librem 5 smartphone can be used as a basic desktop computer (from Smartphone)
Image 41The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra has an artificial intelligence-powered feature (from Smartphone)
Image 42A high-capacity portable battery charger (power bank) (from Smartphone)
Image 43Optical track pad sensor of an HTC Legend, 2010. (from Smartphone)
Image 44This 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 451917 wall telephone, open to show magneto and local battery (from History of the telephone)
Image 46Dupuis and Haug during a GSM meeting in Belgium, April 1992 (from Mobile phone)
Image 47Historical marker commemorating the first telephone central office in New York State (1878) (from History of the telephone)
Image 48Mobile phone subscribers per 100 inhabitants. 2014 figure is estimated. (from Mobile phone)
Image 49Philipp Reis, 1861, constructed the first telephone, today called the Reis telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 50Smartphone with infrared transmitter on top for use as remote control (from Smartphone)
Image 51A 19th century acoustic tin can or "lovers' telephone" (from History of the telephone)
Image 52A Moto G7 Power; its display uses a tall aspect ratio and includes a "notch". (from Smartphone)
Image 53Inserted memory and SIM cards (from Smartphone)
Image 54Receiver schematic, c.1906 (from History of the telephone)
Image 55Actor 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 56The master telephone patent granted to Bell, 174465, March 7, 1876 (from History of the telephone)
Image 57Thomas Edison invented the carbon microphone which produced a strong telephone signal. (from History of the telephone)
Image 58Android smartphones (from Mobile phone)
Image 59Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 60Typical mobile phone mini-SIM card (from Mobile phone)
Image 61Xiaomi 13 Ultra featured a Leica Summicron camera system (from Smartphone)
Image 62A New York City driver holding two phones (from Smartphone)
Image 63The HTC Desire, a 2010 smartphone with optical trackpad and search button (from Smartphone)
Image 64People using phones while walking (from Mobile phone)

Selected biography

Tivadar Puskás de Ditró (in older English technical literature: Theodore Puskás) (17 September 1844 – 16 March 1893) was a Hungarian inventor, telephone pioneer, and inventor of the telephone exchange. He was also the founder of Telefon Hírmondó. (Full article...)

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Alexander Graham Bell Thomas Edison Innocenzo Manzetti Charles Bourseul Johann Philipp Reis Antonio Meucci 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 John Draper

Selected images

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

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Stubs : E x p a n d telephone stub articles: Telephony stubs • Mobile phone stubs • Telephone number stubs

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Telephones in the news

15 February 2025 – Russia–United States relations: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio speak by telephone about the Russo-Ukrainian War, the Gaza war, the sanctions against Russia, and removing restrictions on each country's diplomatic missions. They also discuss preparations for a high-level summit in Saudi Arabia. This is the first time the U.S. and Russia had contact at the foreign minister level in almost two years. (Financial Times)
12 February 2025 – Russo-Ukrainian War: After holding a telephone call with Russian president Vladimir Putin, U.S. president Donald Trump says negotiations to end the war will start immediately. (CNN) (Euronews)

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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