Portal:Telephones
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A telephone, colloquially referred to as a phone, 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 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 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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The DynaTAC is a series of cellular telephones manufactured by Motorola from 1983 to 1994. The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X received approval from the U.S. FCC on September 21, 1983. A full charge took roughly 10 hours, and it offered 30 minutes of talk time. It also offered an LED display for dialing or recall of one of 30 phone numbers. It was priced at $3,995 in 1984, its commercial release year, equivalent to $11,716 in 2023. DynaTAC was an abbreviation of "Dynamic Adaptive Total Area Coverage".
Several models followed, starting in 1985 with the 8000s and continuing with periodic updates of increasing frequency until 1993's Classic II. The DynaTAC was replaced in most roles by the much smaller Motorola MicroTAC when it was first introduced in 1989, and by the time of the Motorola StarTAC's release in 1996, it was obsolete. (Full article...)Types of phones - show another
A camera phone is a mobile phone which is able to capture photographs and often record video using one or more built-in digital cameras. It can also send the resulting image wirelessly and conveniently. The first commercial phone with color camera was the Kyocera Visual Phone VP-210, released in Japan in May 1999.
Most camera phones are smaller and simpler than the separate digital cameras. In the smartphone era, the steady sales increase of camera phones caused point-and-shoot camera sales to peak about 2010 and decline thereafter. The concurrent improvement of smartphone camera technology, and its other multifunctional benefits, have led to it gradually replacing compact point-and-shoot cameras.
Most modern smartphones only have a menu choice to start a camera application program and an on-screen button to activate the shutter. Some also have a separate camera button, for quickness and convenience. A few such as the 2009 Samsung i8000 Omnia II have a two-level shutter button as in dedicated digital cameras. Some camera phones are designed to resemble separate low-end digital compact cameras in appearance and to some degree in features and picture quality, and are branded as both mobile phones and cameras—an example being the 2013 Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom. (Full article...)Selected audio - show another
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The reorder tone, also known as the fast busy tone, or the congestion tone, or all trunks busy (ATB) tone is an audible call progress tone in the public switched telephone network (PSTN) that is returned to a calling party to indicate that the call cannot be processed through the network. (Full article...)
List articles
- Comparison of smartphones
- List of best-selling mobile phones
- List of countries by number of broadband Internet subscriptions
- List of countries by number of telephone lines in use
- List of countries by smartphone penetration
- List of country calling codes
- List of iPhone models
- List of mobile network operators
- List of mobile phone brands by country
- List of mobile phone generations
- List of telecommunications companies
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- Image 1Mobile payment system (from Mobile phone)
- Image 2Cellular networks work by only reusing radio frequencies (in this example frequencies f1-f4) in non adjacent cells to avoid interference (from Mobile phone)
- Image 4Tivadar Puskás proposed the telephone switchboard exchange in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
- Image 5Philipp Reis, 1861, constructed the first telephone, today called the Reis telephone. (from History of the telephone)
- Image 6Android smartphones (from Mobile phone)
- Image 8The 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 9Smartphone with infrared transmitter on top for use as remote control (from Smartphone)
- Image 10The Nokia 9110 Communicator, opened for access to keyboard (from Smartphone)
- Image 11Inserted memory and SIM cards (from Smartphone)
- Image 12A text message (SMS) (from Mobile phone)
- Image 15This 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 16Private conversation, 1910 (from History of the telephone)
- Image 18Mobile phone subscribers per 100 inhabitants. 2014 figure is estimated. (from Mobile phone)
- Image 19Active mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants (from Mobile phone)
- Image 20A smartphone touchscreen (from Smartphone)
- Image 21A 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 22Old Receiver schematic, c.1906 (from History of the telephone)
- Image 23Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
- Image 24Scrapped mobile phones (from Mobile phone)
- Image 25Antonio Meucci's telephone. (from History of the telephone)
- Image 26Tooltip 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 27Several BlackBerry smartphones, which were highly popular in the mid-late 2000s (from Smartphone)
- Image 28A French Gower telephone of 1912 at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris (from History of the telephone)
- Image 29The original Apple iPhone; following its introduction the common smartphone form factor shifted to large touchscreen software interfaces without physical keypads (from Smartphone)
- Image 32Top of cellular telephone tower (from History of the telephone)
- Image 33"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 35Dupuis and Haug during a GSM meeting in Belgium, April 1992 (from Mobile phone)
- Image 36Mobile/desktop convergence: the Librem 5 smartphone can be used as a basic desktop computer (from Smartphone)
- 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 40A 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 41Actor 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 42Thomas Edison invented the carbon microphone which produced a strong telephone signal. (from History of the telephone)
- Image 44The back of a Huawei P30. It features three rear-facing camera lenses with Leica optics. (from Smartphone)
- Image 45Two decades of evolution of mobile phones, from a 1992 Motorola DynaTAC 8000X to the 2014 iPhone 6 Plus (from Mobile phone)
- Image 46Elisha Gray, 1876, designed a telephone using a water microphone in Highland Park, Illinois. (from History of the telephone)
- Image 47People using phones while walking (from Mobile phone)
- Image 491917 wall telephone, open to show magneto and local battery (from History of the telephone)
- Image 50Mobile payment system. (from Smartphone)
- Image 51A Moto G7 Power; its display uses a tall aspect ratio and includes a "notch". (from Smartphone)
- Image 53The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. In 1983, it became the first commercially available handheld cellular mobile phone. (from Mobile phone)
- Image 54Antonio Meucci, 1854, constructed telephone-like devices. (from History of the telephone)
- Image 55A user consulting a mapping app on a phone (from Smartphone)
- Image 57A driver using two handheld mobile phones at once (from Mobile phone)
- Image 61Historical marker commemorating the first telephone central office in New York State (1878) (from History of the telephone)
- Image 62The master telephone patent granted to Bell, 174465, March 10, 1876 (from History of the telephone)
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- Image 1Track-side emergency brake and emergency telephones at the platform of the metro station Aspern Nord, Donaustadt, Vienna, Austria
- Image 2Historical telephone with the German imperial eagle and the heraldic shield of the House of Hohenzollern dynasty; Vollmer's Mill, Seebach, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
- Image 3A cordless phone
- Image 5Apple iPhones
- Image 7Rotary dial telephone, probably from Belgium; the circuit diagram inside is in Dutch and French
- Image 8Emergency telephones, on the Paris-Bordeaux railway line, Saint-Saviol station, Vienne, France
- Image 9A historic telephone booth in Skansen, Stockholm
- Image 10A 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 11Android smartphones
- Image 12An Italian gettone telefonico (telephone token) from 1945, which was used in Italian phone booths
- Image 13A police box outside Earl's Court tube station in London, built in 1996 and based on the 1929 Gilbert Mackenzie Trench design
- Image 14A Northern Electric telephone, model number N415H, circa 1950 (probably)
- Image 15Push-button telephone
- Image 16Rotary dial telephone, probably from Belgium; the circuit diagram inside is in Dutch and French
- Image 17Foldable smartphones
- Image 18Photograph 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 19Public telephone, Bucharest, Romania
- Image 21An example of a K6, the most common red telephone box model, photographed in London in 2012
- Image 22Automatic electric Rotary dial telephone
- Image 23Wooden wall telephone with a hand-cranked magneto generator
- Image 24A Funke + Huster telephone inside the Idrija Mine, Slovenia
- Image 25Acoustic telephone ad, The Consolidated Telephone Co., Jersey City, New Jersey, 1886
- Image 26Mailbox and public telephone in Haßfurt, Germany
- Image 27The AUTOVON was a worldwide American military telephone system that was built starting in 1963.
- Image 28Telephone booth box art outside the Tower of London, 2012
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Telephones in the news
- 20 July 2024 –
- The government of Equatorial Guinea suspends internet and telephone services on the separatist island of Annobón, with the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization condemning the suspension. (Agencia NOVA)
- 19 July 2024 – 2024 Bangladesh quota reform movement
- The government of Bangladesh cut off internet, mobile phone, and TV broadcast services in the country, instituting a media blackout. (France 24)
- 2 July 2024 –
- Floods in northern Myanmar trap thousands of people in their homes and cause power outages and disruptions to telephone services. (Barron's)
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