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The telephone played a major communications role in American history from the 1876 publication of its first patent by Alexander Graham Bell onward. In the 20th century the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) dominated the telecommunication market as the at times largest company in the world, until it was broken up in 1982 and replaced by a system of competitors.
1882: A telephone company—an American Bell Telephone Company affiliate—is set up in Mexico City. 14 May 1883: The Adelaide exchange was opened, with 48 subscribers. [15] 7 September 1883: The Port Adelaide exchange was opened, with 21 subscribers. [15] 4 September 1884: Opening of telephone service between New York and Boston (235 miles). [23]
Landline service is typically provided through the outside plant of a telephone company's central office, or wire center. The outside plant comprises tiers of cabling between distribution points in the exchange area, so that a single pair of copper wire, or an optical fiber, reaches each subscriber location, such as a home or office, at the network interface.
Antonio Meucci, Alexander Graham Bell, and Elisha Gray amongst others, have all been credited with the telephone's invention. The early history of the telephone became and still remains a confusing morass of claims and counterclaims, which were not clarified by the huge number of lawsuits filed in order to resolve the patent claims of the many ...
The Telephone and Its Several Inventors: A History. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. Evenson, A. Edward (2000). The Telephone Patent Conspiracy of 1876: The Elisha Gray – Alexander Bell Controversy. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. Fischer, Claude S. (1994) America calling: A social history of the telephone to 1940 (Univ of California Press, 1994)
A party line (multiparty line, shared service line, party wire) is a local loop telephone circuit that is shared by multiple telephone service subscribers. [1] [2] [3]Party line systems were widely used to provide telephone service, starting with the first commercial switchboards in 1878. [4]
Most of the American telephone system was formerly operated by a single monopoly, AT&T, which was divided in 1984 into a long-distance telephone company and seven regional "Baby Bells". Landline telephone service continues to be divided between incumbent local exchange carriers and several competing long-distance companies. As of 2005, some of ...
Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS), or Plain Ordinary Telephone System [1], is a retronym for voice-grade telephone service that employs analog signal transmission over copper loops. The term POTS originally stood for Post Office Telephone Service , as early telephone lines in many regions were operated directly by local Post Offices .