Portal:Telephones

The Telephones Portal

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 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. Smartphones are distinguished from older-design feature phones by their more advanced hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, access to the internet, business applications, mobile payments, and multimedia functionality, including music, video, gaming, radio, and television. (Full article...)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

Selected article - show another

A harmonised service of social value is a type of freephone service available in the European Union and in some non-EU countries (including the countries in the European Economic Area and United Kingdom), which answers a specific social need, in particular which contributes to the well-being or safety of citizens, or particular groups of citizens, or helps citizens in difficulty. The phone numbers and the corresponding service descriptions are managed by the European Commission and harmonised across all EU and EEA member states. Harmonised services of social value use the prefix 116, which is then followed by three digits indicating the type of service.

After the commission has assigned a number, it is then up to the telephone regulator in each country to allocate the number to a telephone service provider and providing organisation of their choice. The first telephone numbers to be allocated are 116 000 (missing children helplines), 116 111 (child help lines) and 116 123 (emotional support helplines). (Full article...)

List of selected articles

Types of phones - show another

A prepaid mobile device, also known as a pay-as-you-go (PAYG), pay-as-you-talk, pay and go, go-phone, or prepay, is a mobile device such as a phone for which credit is purchased in advance of service use. The purchased credit is used to pay for telecommunications services at the point the service is accessed or consumed. If there is no credit, then access is denied by the cellular network or Intelligent Network. Users can top up their credit at any time using a variety of payment mechanisms such as the Pay-as-you-go (PAYG). In 2020, 155 countries had the mandatory SIM registration laws for the prepaid mobile SIM cards such as the mandatory Know Your Customer (KYC) or other type of legal identification verification at the point of sale to prevent the anonymous use of unregistered prepaid mobile which facilitates criminal or terrorist activities. A burner phone is a prepaid phone number specifically purchased without the Know Your Customer (KYC) or other type of legal identification verification at the point of sale with the purpose of using it briefly and then replacing it, thus making this phone more suitable for criminal use.

The alternative billing method (and what is commonly referred to as a mobile contract) is the postpaid mobile phone, where a user enters into a long-term contract (lasting 12, 18, or 24 months) or short-term contract (also commonly referred to as a rolling contract or a 30-day contract) and billing arrangement with a mobile phone operator (mobile virtual network operator or mobile network operator). (Full article...)

List of phone types
Payphone Courtesy telephone Emergency telephone Secure telephone Smartphone Mobile phone Satellite phone Phablet Car phone Windows Phone Camera phone Feature phone VoIP phone iPhone Tin can telephone Sound-powered telephone Grillo telephone Golden telephone Reis telephone Cordless telephone Shoe phone Field telephone IBM Simon Mobile radio telephone Foldable smartphone Modular smartphone

edit

Selected audio - show another

Multi-frequency dialing

These multi-frequency tones were generated by automated switching equipment. The blue box was designed to replicate these tones.

Problems playing this file? See media help.

A blue box is an electronic device that produces tones used to generate the in-band signaling tones formerly used within the North American long-distance telephone network to send line status and called number information over voice circuits. During that period, charges associated with long-distance calling were commonplace and could be significant, depending on the time, duration and destination of the call. A blue box device allowed for circumventing these charges by enabling an illicit user, referred to as a "phreaker", to place long-distance calls, without using the network's user facilities, that would be billed to another number or dismissed entirely by the telecom company's billing system as an incomplete call. A number of similar "color boxes" were also created to control other aspects of the phone network. (Full article...)

More selected audio

List articles

Related portals

General images - show new batch

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

Image 1Martin 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 2A French Gower telephone of 1912 at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris (from History of the telephone)
Image 3Reis's telephone around 1861, first device called telephone (from History of the telephone)
Image 4A Meizu MX4 with Flyme OS (from Smartphone)
Image 5Scrapped mobile phones (from Mobile phone)
Image 6Two decades of evolution of mobile phones, from a 1992 Motorola DynaTAC 8000X to the 2014 iPhone 6 Plus (from Mobile phone)
Image 7A 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 8The 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 91917 wall telephone, open to show magneto and local battery (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 11Cellular networks work by only reusing radio frequencies (in this example frequencies f1–f4) in non adjacent cells to avoid interference (from Mobile phone)
Image 12Mobile phone subscribers per 100 inhabitants. 2014 figure is estimated. (from Mobile phone)
Image 13Elisha Gray, 1876, designed a telephone using a water microphone in Highland Park, Illinois. (from History of the telephone)
Image 14Oppo Find X6 features software-based tuning co-developed with Hasselblad (from Smartphone)
Image 15IBM Simon and charging base (1994) (from Smartphone)
Image 16A New York City driver holding two phones (from Smartphone)
Image 17The master telephone patent granted to Bell, 174465, March 7, 1876 (from History of the telephone)
Image 18The Nokia 9110 Communicator, opened for access to keyboard (from Smartphone)
Image 19The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra has an artificial intelligence-powered feature (from Smartphone)
Image 20A user consulting a mapping app on a phone (from Smartphone)
Image 21Thomas Edison invented the carbon microphone which produced a strong telephone signal. (from History of the telephone)
Image 22Tivadar Puskás proposed the telephone switchboard exchange in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 23"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 24Receiver schematic, c.1906 (from History of the telephone)
Image 25This 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 26Typical mobile phone mini-SIM card (from Mobile phone)
Image 27Mobile payment system. (from Smartphone)
Image 28The LG Prada with a large capacitive touchscreen introduced in 2006 (from Smartphone)
Image 29Philipp Reis, 1861, constructed the first telephone, today called the Reis telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 30Replica of the telettrofono at Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci of Milan, Italy, invented by Antonio Meucci and credited by several sources as the first telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 31Smartphone with infrared transmitter on top for use as remote control (from Smartphone)
Image 32Antonio Meucci, 1854, developed a voice-communication apparatus that several sources credit as the first telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 33A Moto G7 Power; its display uses a tall aspect ratio and includes a "notch". (from Smartphone)
Image 34Active mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants (from Mobile phone)
Image 35Apple iPhone smartphone (from History of the telephone)
Image 36A 19th century acoustic tin can or "lovers' telephone" (from History of the telephone)
Image 37Mobile/desktop convergence: the Librem 5 smartphone can be used as a basic desktop computer (from Smartphone)
Image 38Several BlackBerry smartphones, which were highly popular in the mid-late 2000s (from Smartphone)
Image 39A text message (SMS) (from Mobile phone)
Image 40A driver using two handheld mobile phones at once (from Mobile phone)
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 42People using phones while walking (from Mobile phone)
Image 43The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. In 1983, it became the first commercially available handheld cellular mobile phone. (from Mobile phone)
Image 44Top of cellular telephone tower (from History of the telephone)
Image 45A smartphone touchscreen (from Smartphone)
Image 46A German rotary dial telephone, the W48 (from History of the telephone)
Image 47Private conversation, 1910 (from History of the telephone)
Image 48
Bell prototype telephone stamp
Centennial Issue of 1976
(from History of the telephone)
Image 49Actor 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 50Tooltip 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 51The HTC Desire, a 2010 smartphone with optical trackpad and search button (from Smartphone)
Image 52Historical marker commemorating the first telephone central office in New York State (1878) (from History of the telephone)
Image 53A high-capacity portable battery charger (power bank) (from Smartphone)
Image 54A Nexus 6, an Android smartphone, displaying the Main Page of the English Wikipedia (from Smartphone)
Image 55Personal Handy-phone System mobiles and modems, 1997–2003 (from Mobile phone)
Image 56Dupuis and Haug during a GSM meeting in Belgium, April 1992 (from Mobile phone)
Image 57Android smartphones (from Mobile phone)
Image 58Optical track pad sensor of an HTC Legend, 2010. (from Smartphone)
Image 59Mobile payment system (from Mobile phone)
Image 60Xiaomi 13 Ultra featured a Leica Summicron camera system (from Smartphone)
Image 61Inserted memory and SIM cards (from Smartphone)
Image 62A Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus, featuring a "hole-punch" camera (from Smartphone)
Image 63E-waste in Agbogbloshie (from Smartphone)
Image 641896 telephone (Sweden) (from History of the telephone)

Selected biography

Hubbard in 1875

Gardiner Greene Hubbard (August 25, 1822 – December 11, 1897) was an American lawyer, financier, and community leader. He was a founder and first president of the National Geographic Society; a founder and the first president of the Bell Telephone Company which later evolved into AT&T, at times the world's largest telephone company; a founder of the journal Science; and an advocate of oral speech education for the deaf.

One of his daughters, Mabel Gardiner Hubbard, married Alexander Graham Bell. (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 Anthony Pollok Thomas A. Watson Elisha Gray George Sweigert Pat Fleet John Draper

Selected images

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

Topics

Subcategories

Category puzzle

Select [►] to view subcategories

Mobile phones

Mobile phones by company

Active noise control mobile phones

Mobile telephone broadcasting

Mobile phone companies

Mobile phone culture

History of mobile phones

Mobile phone industry

Lists of mobile phones

Mobile device management

Mobile device accessory companies

Mobile phones with 4K video recording

Mobile phones with 8K video recording

Mobile phones with an integrated hardware keyboard

Mobile phones with infrared transmitter

Mobile phones with mechanical zoom lens

Mobile phones with pressure-sensitive touch screen

Mobile phones with self-capacitive touch screen layer

Mobile phones with stylus

Mobile phones with user-replaceable battery

Mobile phones with multiple rear cameras

Open-source mobile phones

Mobile phone recycling

Mobile phones by shape

Smartphones

Mobile software

Solar-powered mobile phones

Mobile phone standards

Mobile phones with stereo camera

Watch phones

Works about mobile phones

Mobile phones by year of introduction

Mobile phone stubs

Moved

Select [►] to view subcategories

More

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

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

WikiProjects

WikiProject Telecommunications
Bell System task force

WikiProject Electronics

Telephones in the news
No recent news

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

Commons
Free media repository
Wikibooks
Free textbooks and manuals
Wikidata
Free knowledge base
Wikinews
Free-content news
Wikiquote
Collection of quotations
Wikisource
Free-content library
Wikiversity
Free learning tools
Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus

Discover Wikipedia using portals

Purge server cache

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