Who invented the cell phone? The very first telephones in the world When the first telephone in the world was invented.

The history of telephony is interesting both in terms of the invention of various devices, and in terms of the stages of deployment of various types of communication networks around the world. In some aspects, the dynamics of the spread of relevant technologies seems revolutionary, while in others it is characterized by progressive, uniform development. What are the most noteworthy facts regarding the global telephone industry?

Who invented the telephone?

Traditionally, the history of the telephone is associated with the name of Alexander Bell, an American inventor of Scottish origin. Indeed, the famous researcher took a direct part in the development of a revolutionary apparatus for transmitting sounds over a distance. However, there are known facts that other designers also played a vital role in the creation of the telephone. For example, Johann Philipp Reis, a famous German inventor, at a meeting of scientists of the Physical Society held in 1861, reported on the prototype of an electrical device he had created for transmitting sound over a distance. The name of the invention was also mentioned - “telephone”, which is familiar to us today. Reis's contemporaries, however, received the device without due enthusiasm. But this is the most important fact in the history of the creation of the telephone.

Fifteen years later, two American researchers, Elisha Gray and Alexander Bell, working independently, discovered the effect of telephoning. Both scientists, interestingly, on the same day, namely February 14, 1876, filed an application to patent their discovery. At the same time, they had not yet developed a functioning device that would use telephony. Presumably, Bell was about 2 hours ahead of Gray in filing the application, and many historians attribute the fact that the history of the creation of the telephone today is associated with the name of the American inventor to this circumstance.

The appearance of the first telephone

Alexander Bell lived in Boston and worked with people with hearing and speech problems. In 1873 he became professor of physiology at Boston University. Due to his occupation, he was probably an expert in the field of acoustics and had excellent hearing.

The history of the first telephone created by Alexander Bell is thus connected with his work. Among the remarkable facts related to the invention of the device is the very effect of telephoning, discovered by the researcher with the direct assistance of his assistant. So, a specialist working with Bell once pulled out a plate from the transmitting device, which, as it seemed to Bell, was making some rattling noise. As the researcher later found out, this was due to the fact that the element periodically closed electrical contacts.

Based on the identified effect, Alexander Bell created a telephone set. It was designed very simply: like a membrane made of leather, equipped with a signal element for magnification. The device could only transmit the sound of a voice, but this, apparently, was enough to patent the device - Bell received the corresponding document recording the authorship of the invention on March 10, 1876 .

The history of telephones is also interesting in terms of their commercial use. A few days later, the inventor modified the telephone so that it could transmit clearly audible individual words. Alexander Bell later showed his device to the business community. The device made an incredible impression on business people. The American inventor soon registered his company, which subsequently became prosperous.

First telephone lines

The history of the telephone is now known to us. But how was Bell’s invention introduced into everyday life? In 1877, also in Boston, the first telephone line was launched, and in 1878, a telephone exchange was launched in New Haven. In the same year, another famous American inventor, Thomas Edison, created a new model of an apparatus for transmitting voice over a distance. Its design included an induction coil, which significantly improved the quality of communication, as well as increased the distance of sound transmission.

Contribution of inventors from Russia

The history of the development of the telephone is also connected with the names of Russian designers. In 1885, Pavel Mikhailovich Golubitsky, an inventor from Russia, developed a fundamentally new scheme for the operation of a telephone exchange, in which power was supplied to the devices externally - from a central source. Before this, each phone worked from its own electrical outlet. This concept made it possible to create stations that simultaneously serve a huge number of subscribers - tens of thousands. In 1895, the Russian inventor Mikhail Filippovich Freidenberg proposed to the world the concept of a telephone exchange, which involved automatically connecting one subscriber to another. The first operating telephone exchange was introduced in the USA, in the city of Augusta.

Development of communication lines in Russia

The history of the appearance of the telephone in Russia is connected with the construction of a line for the transmission of communications between St. Petersburg and Malaya Vishera. The first conversation between Russian subscribers through this channel took place in 1879, that is, only 3 years after the invention of the telephone. Later, one of the first civilian communication lines connected the Georgievskaya pier, located in Nizhny Novgorod, and apartments that belonged to the management of the Druzhina shipping company. The length of the line was about 1547 m.

City telephone exchanges began operating on a regular basis in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Odessa in 1882. In 1898, an intercity line appeared, connecting Moscow and St. Petersburg. The history of telephones in Russia is interesting because the station that served the communication channel between Moscow and St. Petersburg still exists and operates to this day. It is located on Myasnitskaya Street in the capital of the Russian Federation.

The pace of development of telephony in the Russian Empire was very decent - for example, by 1916, there were an average of 3.7 telephones per 100 residents of Moscow. In 1935, already under the USSR, all Belokamennaya metro stations were equipped with telephones. Starting from 1953, all houses put into operation in the capital of the USSR were required to have a telephone cable.

The history of telephones is fascinating. It's always interesting to study its details. Having learned how wired phones appeared, we will consider the most remarkable facts regarding the development of mobile devices, which today are no less in demand than traditional ones.

How did mobile phones come about?

The first recorded telephone conversation via a radio channel, which in a number of key characteristics corresponds to the principles of organizing modern cellular communications, was conducted in 1950 in Sweden. Inventor Sture Laugen, who was driving the Televerket company, successfully telephoned the time service using the appropriate type of device. By that time, Sture Lauren had worked for several years at Televerket, developing this device. The history of the phone is also connected with the name of Ragnar Berglund, Lauren's colleague.

Target - mass market

By the time Lauren made the call we mentioned above, telephone radio communication as such was already in use, but it was available only to intelligence services and military structures. The Televerket company has set the task of creating a device accessible to every citizen.

The Swedish development was introduced to the mass market in 1956. At first she worked only in two cities - Stockholm and Gothenburg. During 1956, only 26 subscribers connected to it, which was not surprising due to the high cost of a “mobile phone”, the cost of which was comparable to the price of a car.

Development of mobile communications

The history of the development of mobile phones is, in a number of ways, inferior to the dynamics of the spread of telephone communications. If, for example, already 3 years later, devices created according to the principles of Alexander Bell were actively used in Russia, then for quite a long time mobile phones were not in mass demand.

Only in 1969 did the world leaders of the telecommunications market begin to think that it would be nice to somehow unify the corresponding communication systems. For example, it was assumed that each subscriber - like landline phone owners - would have his own number, and it would be relevant not only in the country where it was issued, but also abroad. Thus, we can note that the history of the mobile phone, in fact, from the very beginning, reflects the interest of the engineering community in implementing roaming concepts.

Among the first inventors to propose the practical implementation of a technology for which corresponding requests were generated was Stockholm Technical School graduate Esten Mäkitolo. The history of the creation of a mobile phone in the form we are familiar with is directly related to its name. However, for the practical implementation of the Myakitolo concept, very powerful technologies were required. They appeared only in the early 80s.

First cellular network

The history of cell phones includes a remarkable fact: the first country in which it was deployed was Saudi Arabia. It was there that Ericsson, which actively participated in the practical implementation of the concepts proposed by Myakitolo, entered into a contract in 1981 for the supply of relevant services. The network launched in Saudi Arabia was characterized by the main criterion - mass participation. Gradually, cellular communication standards improved, and networks began to function in other countries of the world.

Development of uniform standards

As the mobile communications market grew, there was a growing need to develop uniform standards for the provision of relevant services. In Saudi Arabia, in the Scandinavian countries, in the Benelux, the NMT concept became popular, in Germany the C-Netz system was used, in the UK, France, and Italy their own concepts were implemented.

The emergence of GSM

To integrate the European mobile space, the GSM standard was created. It can be said to have absorbed all the best from other “national” concepts, and therefore, although not without difficulties, it was adopted by the European technological community in 1986. But the first GSM network was introduced only in 1990 in Finland. Subsequently, this standard became the main one for Russian cellular communication providers.

The history of telephones - both regular and cell phones - is incredibly fascinating. But no less interesting is how the relevant technologies are developing. Let's study how cellular communication lines have been improved.

Development of the cellular communications market

In the first years after the introduction of GSM standards into consumer practice, using the corresponding services was very expensive. But gradually the devices needed to work with mobile networks became cheaper and became truly widespread. Phones improved and became smaller in size. In 1996, Nokia introduced, in fact, one of the first smartphones - a device with which you could send mail, faxes, and use the Internet. In the same year, the now legendary StarTac book from Motorola appeared.

Smartphones and mobile Internet

In 1997, Philips released the Spark phone with a very large battery life - about 350 hours. In 1998, the Sharp PMC-1 Smartphone mobile device with a touch screen appeared. It was expected that it would be a direct competitor to the above-mentioned gadget from Nokia. In 1999, mobile operators began to introduce WAP technology, which made it easier for subscribers to access the mobile Internet. In 2000, the GPRS standard appeared, as well as UMTS, one of the main ones used in the architecture of 3G networks.

In 2009, the Swedish company TeliaSonera launched the world's first 4G network. Now it is considered the most modern and is being actively implemented by operators around the world.

Prospects for phones

What will be the next step in the development of the cellular industry? The history of the mobile phone shows that effective, revolutionary solutions can appear at any time. It may seem that the 4G standard is the limit of what modern technology can do. It would seem that data transmission at speeds of tens of megabits, excellent communication quality - what could be a level higher?

However, the world's leading research laboratories continue to actively work in the field of improving mobile technologies. Perhaps, soon in the hands of any willing subscriber there will appear a device as sensational for the modern average person as Bell's telephone was in the 70s of the 19th century, or the device used to call from a car on Sture Lauren. And after a while, people will stop being surprised by him. This incredibly technological industry is so dynamic.

On February 14, 1876, Scottish-American Alexander Graham Bell filed an application with the US Patent Office for a device he invented, which he called a telephone. Just two hours later, another American named Gray made a similar request.

This still happens to inventors today, although very rarely. Bell's luck also lay in the fact that an accident helped him make an outstanding invention. However, to a much greater extent, the telephone owes its appearance to the enormous work, perseverance and knowledge of this person.

Alexander Graham Bell was born in Edinburgh on March 3, 1847, into a family of philologists. At the age of 14, he moved to London to live with his grandfather, under whose guidance he studied literature and public speaking. And three years later he began an independent life, teaching music and public speaking at Weston House Academy. In the spring of 1871, the family moved to Boston, where Bell taught a school for the deaf and dumb using the "system of visible speech" invented by his grandfather.
At that time, the Western Union Company was looking for a way to simultaneously transmit several telegrams over one pair of wires in order to eliminate the need to lay additional telegraph lines. The company announced a large cash prize for the inventor who proposes a similar method.

Bell began to work on this problem, using his knowledge of the laws of acoustics. Bell was going to transmit seven telegrams simultaneously, according to the number of musical notes - a tribute to the music he had loved since childhood. Bell was helped in his work on the “musical telegraph” by a young Boston resident, Thomas Watson. Watson admired Bell.

“Once, when I was working, a tall, slender, agile man with a pale face, black sideburns and a high sloping forehead quickly approached my workbench, holding in his hands some part of the apparatus that was not made the way he wanted. “He was the first educated person with whom I became closely acquainted, and much about him delighted me.”
Thomas Watson
about Graham Bell

And not only him. Bell's horizons were unusually broad, which was recognized by many of his contemporaries. His versatile education was combined with a lively imagination, and this allowed him to easily combine in his experiments such diverse areas of science and art - acoustics, music, electrical engineering and mechanics.

Since Bell was not an electrician, he consulted another famous Bostonian, the scientist D. Henry, after whom the unit of inductance is named. After examining the first sample of the telegraph at Bell Laboratory, Henry exclaimed: “Under any pretext, do not quit what you started!” Without abandoning work on the “musical telegraph,” Bell at the same time began to build a certain apparatus, through which he hoped to make the sounds of speech visible to the deaf and dumb immediately and directly, without any written notation. To do this, he worked for almost a year at the Massachusetts Otolaryngological Hospital, conducting various experiments to study human hearing.

The main part of the apparatus was to be a membrane; a needle attached to the latter recorded curves corresponding to various sounds, syllables and words on the surface of a rotating drum. Reflecting on the action of the membrane, Bell came up with the idea of ​​​​another device, with the help of which, as he wrote, “the transmission of various sounds will become possible, if only we can cause fluctuations in the intensity of the electric current corresponding to the fluctuations in the density of the air that the given sound produces.” Bell gave this still non-existent device the sonorous name “telephone”. Thus, work on the particular task of helping the deaf and dumb led to the idea of ​​​​the possibility of creating a device that turned out to be necessary for all of humanity and, undoubtedly, influenced the further course of history.

While working on the “musical telegraph,” Bell and Watson worked in separate rooms where the transmitting and receiving apparatus were installed. Tuning forks were steel plates of different lengths, rigidly fixed at one end and closing an electrical circuit at the other.
One day, Watson had to free the end of a record that was stuck in the contact gap and in the process touched other records. Naturally, they rattled. Writer Mitchell Wilson describes subsequent events as follows: “Although the experimenters believed that the line was not working, Bell’s keen hearing caught a faint rattling sound in the receiving device. He immediately guessed what had happened and rushed headlong into Watson’s room. “What were you doing now? - he shouted. “Don’t change anything!” Watson began to explain what was the matter, but Bell excitedly interrupted him, saying that they had now discovered what they had been looking for all along.” The stuck plate acted like a primitive diaphragm. In all of Bell and Watson's previous experiments, the free end simply closed and opened an electrical circuit. Now the sound vibrations of the plate induced electromagnetic vibrations in a magnet located next to the plate. This was the difference between the telephone and all other pre-existing telegraph devices.

For the telephone to operate, a continuous electric current is required, the strength of which would vary in exact accordance with the vibrations of sound waves in the air. The invention of the telephone coincided with the peak of the electric telegraph and was completely unexpected. At that time, in the United States, the Morse-based Magnetic Telegraph Company was completing construction of a line from Mississippi to the East Coast. In Russia, Boris Jacobi created more and more advanced devices, surpassing all competitors in reliability and transmission speed. The telegraph was so consistent with the needs of its era that other means of electrical communication were, it seems, not needed at all.

The world's first telephone, assembled by Watson, had a sound membrane made of leather. Its center was connected to the moving armature of the electromagnet. Sound vibrations were amplified by the horn, concentrating on a membrane fixed in its smallest section.

Bell's breadth of vision played no less a role in the invention of the telephone than his intuition. Knowledge of acoustics and electrical engineering, combined with experience as an experimenter, led a teacher at a school for deaf children to an invention that allowed millions of people to hear each other across continents and oceans.

Meanwhile, telephony as the principle of transmitting information by voice over long distances was known even before the new era. The Persian king Cyrus (VI century BC) employed 30,000 people called “royal ears” for this purpose. Positioned on the tops of hills and watchtowers within earshot of each other, they conveyed messages intended for the king and his orders. The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (1st century BC) testifies that in one day, news via such a telephone was transmitted over a thirty-day journey. Julius Caesar mentions that the Gauls also had a similar communication system. It even indicates the speed of message transmission - 100 kilometers per hour.

In 1876, Bell demonstrated his apparatus at the Philadelphia World's Fair. The word telephone was heard for the first time within the walls of the exhibition pavilion - this is how the inventor recommended his “talking telegraph”. To the amazement of the jury, the monologue of the Prince of Denmark “To be or not to be?” was heard from the mouthpiece of this contraption, performed at the same time, but in a different room, by the inventor himself, Mr. Bell.

History answered this question with an unquestioning “to be.” Bell's invention became a sensation at the Philadelphia Exhibition. And this is despite the fact that the first telephone worked with monstrous sound distortions, it was possible to talk with its help no further than 250 meters, because it operated without batteries, by the power of electromagnetic induction alone, its receiving and transmitting devices were the same primitive.

Having organized the Bell Telephone Society, the inventor began hard work to improve his brainchild, and a year later he patented a new membrane and fittings for the telephone. Then he used a Yuz carbon microphone and battery power to increase the transmission distance. In this form, the telephone successfully existed for more than a hundred years.
Many other inventors began improving telephone devices, and by 1900, more than 3 thousand patents had been issued in this area. Of these, we can note the microphone designed by the Russian engineer M. Makhalsky (1878), as well as the first automatic station for 10,000 numbers by S. M. Apostolov (1894). But then, after the Philadelphia Exhibition, the history of the telephone was just beginning. Ahead was a fierce struggle with competitors. Bell also faced competition with another famous inventor, Thomas Edison.

Bell's patent turned out to be one of the most lucrative patents ever issued in the United States, and over the next decades he was targeted by nearly every major electrical and telegraph company in America. However, its commercial significance was not immediately understood by contemporaries. Almost immediately after receiving the patent, Bell offered to buy it to Western Union for $100,000, hoping that the proceeds would enable him to pay off his debts. But his proposal did not meet with a response.

Bell demonstrated his phone to audiences in Salem, Boston, and New York. The first broadcasts consisted mainly of playing musical instruments and singing popular arias. Newspapers wrote about the inventor with respect, but his activities brought almost no money.

On June 11, 1877, Bell and Mabel Hubbard were married at the home of the bride's parents, and the young couple sailed to England. This trip played a huge role in the history of the telephone. In England, Bell successfully continued his demonstrations, which attracted large crowds. Finally, a "delightful telephone performance" was given to the Queen herself and her family. The titled persons sang, recited and talked to each other over the wires, interrupting themselves with questions about whether they could be heard well. The queen was pleased.

Newspapers made so much noise about the success of the telephone in England that Western Union had to change its attitude towards the invention. The company's president, Orton, reasoned that if the electric telephone was invented by some teacher for the deaf, then specialists like Edison and Gray would be able to create a better device. And at the beginning of 1879, Western Union created the American Speaker Telephone Company, which began producing telephones, ignoring Bell's patent rights.

Bell's supporters took out loans, created the New England Telephone Company in response, and rushed into battle. The result of the struggle, however, was the creation at the end of 1879 of the united Bell Company. In December of that year, the stock price rose to $995. Bell became an extremely wealthy man. Wealth was accompanied by fame and worldwide fame. France awarded him the Volta Prize, established by Napoleon, in the amount of 50 thousand francs (before Bell, this prize was awarded only once), and made him a Knight of the Legion of Honor. In 1885 he took American citizenship.

In one of his letters to his associates, Bell, for the first time in history and in great detail, outlined a plan to create a telephone network in a large city based on a central switchboard. In the letter, he insisted that for advertising purposes it would be desirable to install telephone sets free of charge in the central stores of the city.

On the rainy morning of August 4, 1922, all telephones in the United States and Canada were turned off for a minute. America buried Alexander Graham Bell. 13 million telephone sets of all kinds and designs fell silent in honor of the great inventor.

Ordinary Story: Telephone

Almost no modern person can imagine his life and work without a telephone.

However, more recently, in historical terms, there were times when a telephone was considered a luxury. Who invented and introduced the telephone to the masses?

Content:

Landline communications

As everyone knows, the era of telephone communication began with wired telephones, which could transmit voice messages using technologies that were significantly different from modern ones.

Such a device became a major breakthrough and the first “bell” of an active scientific and technological revolution, which began almost immediately from the creation of such an innovative device.

Story

The first telephone was created in an era when the only way to more or less quickly transmit messages over long distances was the telegraph.

At that time, the telegraph was considered a perfect and fully functional means of communication with remote regions.

However, the invention of the telephone caused a revolution, and it quickly began to be put into use.

It is worth noting that the invention of the telephone could not have been thought of until electricity was discovered.

When electricity became more or less widely used, the telegraph appeared - Morse presented to the public in 1897 not only his alphabet, but also his broadcasting apparatus.

The appearance of the world's first device capable of quickly transmitting information without a physical carrier over a greater distance proved that such a transmission method was possible in principle, and gave scientists of that time the impetus to develop methods for its improvement.

First device

And at the end of the 19th century, scientists managed to significantly improve the transmission method and give it a new format. It is believed that Alexander Bell invented the telephone, but this is not entirely true.

The appearance of the device would be impossible without Philip Rice- German scientist.

It was Rice who created the very basis of the future telephone set- a device capable of transmitting a recording of a human voice over certain (quite large for that time) distances using galvanic current conductors. Rice's development was published in 1861, and during this period Bell took it as the basis for his future invention - the telephone, in the form in which we know it now.

So, after 15 years, namely in 1876, the first telephone based on galvanic current appeared, the inventor of which was considered Alexander Graham Bell.

At this year's World's Fair, a Scottish researcher presented his device that allows voice messages to be transmitted over a distance, and also applied for a patent.

Specifications

What technical characteristics did this first device have?

It was significantly inferior not only to the devices that became widespread in the 20th century, but also to subsequent models created by Bell a few years later.

However, at that time its characteristics were considered premium.

The distance over which the device could transmit sound was 200 m, which was a lot.

Initially, it had severe sound distortion, but with the next improvement, Alexander Graham Bell eliminated this problem.

And in this form, the device, invented and improved by him, existed for almost another 100 years.

History of creation

Like many famous inventions that changed not only the course of scientific and technological progress, but also the course of history, it was created by accident.

Initially, Alexander Bell's goal was not to create a device that would transmit a voice message, but to create a telegraph apparatus capable of transmitting several telegrams simultaneously.

In the process of experiments on such improvement of the telegraph apparatus, the telephone was created.

The telegraph operated using pairs of records, and for their experiment Bell and his assistant prepared several pairs of such records, which were tuned to operate at different frequencies.

As a result of a slight violation of the experimental technology, one of the plates got stuck.

The inventor's assistant began to express his opinion regarding what had happened, while Bell himself at that moment carried out some manipulations with the receiving device of the telegraph apparatus.

A few seconds later, scientists heard sounds coming from the transmitter and resembling a voice recording, although with very strong distortion. From this moment the history of telephone communication began. After Alexander Bell presented his device to the public, many eminent scientists began work to improve the existing device.

The patent office issued hundreds of patents for devices that could modernize and improve the created phone. The most significant of them are:

1 T. Watson's call, replacing the whistle that was originally installed on the Bell apparatus, which appeared in 1878;

2 Carbon microphone M. Michalski, which improved the quality of transmission, and was created in 1878;

3 Automatic telephone exchange for 10,000 numbers S. Apostolov, which appeared in 1894.

The importance of Alexander Bell's invention can also be assessed by financial parameters.

This patent became one of the most profitable in the world, it was he who made Bell a world famous and very rich man. But was it deserved?

Meucci's contribution

In 2002, the US Congress recognized that this patent was issued undeservedly, and the true discoverer of telephone communication should be considered not the Scottish scientist Alexander Graham Bell, but the Italian inventor Antonio Meucci, who created his device after many years of the Bell telephone.

In 1860, he created the truly first apparatus capable of transmitting sound through wires. Meucci's device was called the telextrophone.

At the time of the creation and improvement of the invention, Meucci lived in the USA, was already almost an elderly man and was in a very poor financial situation.

At this stage, his invention and The large company Western Union became interested.

Its representatives offered the scientist to sell all his developments for a substantial sum, and also promised to assist in obtaining a patent.

The poor financial situation forced Meucci to give in to the company's demands. He received his money, but did not receive any help in obtaining a patent, so he applied for it himself, but was refused. And in 1876, Alexander Bell received a patent for an almost completely similar device.

This was a serious shock for Meucci, and he tried to challenge the decision to award the patent to Bell in court.

During the first stages of the proceedings, Meucci did not have enough finances to fight the huge corporation.

As a result, the right to the patent was nevertheless returned to him in court, but only when the validity period of this patent had already expired.

Important! Only in 2002 was a resolution passed by the Congress of the United States of America, according to which Meucci was officially recognized as the inventor of the telephone.

The twentieth century

Devices similar to Meucci's were used throughout much of the twentieth century.

They were constantly being improved, and if the first models that became widespread could communicate with the called subscriber only through a telephone exchange, which required a manual connection, then later these stations became automatic, and subscribers were able to communicate almost directly.

The advent of such an automatic communication system was a big step towards the invention of the telephone as users know it today.

The first telephone that brought scientists closer to the invention of cellular communications was the radiotelephone.

After this, the first cell phone appeared, and relatively recently, satellite telephony.

The newest of the existing developments can be called, which has little in common directly with the phone, but performs the same functions.

mobile connection

The history of cellular communications began with radiotelephones, the first tests of which were carried out in 1941 by G. Shapiro and I. Zakharchenko in the USSR, and by AT&T Bell Laboratories in the USA.

The system was based on radio communication and was intended to be used for communication between cars (in the modern sense, it was more like a walkie-talkie than a telephone).

In both superpowers, the tests were successful and the system fully met the expectations of the inventors.

And already in 1947, the concept of using hexagonal cells for communication was first proposed in the USA. It was proposed for use by Douglas Ring and Ray Young, inventors working on the Bell staff. The tests were also successful, and it was on the basis of this technology that mobile communications subsequently developed (and it was on the basis of this technology that it got its name).

But the real birthplace of mobile communications is still considered not to be the USA or the USSR, but Sweden.

Here, in 1956, a vehicle-to-vehicle communication system was launched and successfully operated, which became the first such system in the world.

Initially, the project was implemented in the three largest cities of the state - Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmo.

Telephone sets of Kupriyanovich

The first telephone that could be truly mobile and used in field devices was invented in the USSR.

The subscriber could carry it with him; it did not need to be built into cars and transported, like earlier models.

The device was presented to the public by L. I. Kupriyanovich, a Soviet engineer, in 1957.

The weight of the device was 3 kg, which was very light by the standards of that time, but it operated over fairly long distances - up to 30 km, depending on the terrain.

The operating time of this device without replacing batteries was 20-30 hours, depending on operating conditions. The inventor received a patent for the engineering solutions of the device in 1957.

This engineer continued to work in this direction until 1958.

This year he created a more compact mobile phone that works on the same principles as the previous device.

The new device weighed only half a kilogram and was no larger than a cigarette box.

Kupriyanovich did not stop his work in 1961.

This year he is creating a device that works on the same principles as the previous two, but weighs only 70 grams and fits in your pocket. It is capable of communicating over a distance of up to 80 km.

According to the inventor, this device could well be adapted for mass production with the aim of mass equipping heads of departments and enterprises with it. Some time later, in one of his interviews with periodicals, he announced his readiness to design 10 automatic television stations for portable telephones throughout the country. But this project was never implemented in reality.

Bulgarian developments

Although Kupriyanovich himself will soon stop working, his system, in one variation or another, continues to be improved by other companies.

Thus, in 1965, the Radioelectronics company from Bulgaria presented at the Inforga-65 technology festival a system consisting of a main telephone exchange for 15 subscribers, and 15 telephones themselves.

At the same time, they mention that the project was developed precisely on the principle of Kupriyanovich’s equipment.

Work on such technology in this organization continues in 1966. At the Interorgtekhnika-66 scientific exhibition, they presented a set of mobile phones and a station designed to work with six devices. An industrial model is presented, ready, to a greater or lesser extent, for mass production.

In the future, the company works with this particular model, which is already significantly different from Kupriyanovich’s devices.

They first create a station with 69 numbers, and then with 699.

The system became widespread, became a substitute for intercom and was widely produced by industrial enterprises to equip departmental institutions with communications, and was actively used in the country until the early 90s.

Car phones

At the same time, the development of radiotelephones for cars is actively underway.

They are implemented using a different technology, different from Kupriyanovich’s technology, but are relatively popular and widely distributed in the USSR and the world at the beginning of the second half of the twentieth century.

In 1958, work began on the design and creation of mobile phones intended for equipping civilian departmental vehicles.

These phones were called "Altai" and could only be used in a car.

In 1963, Altai was already introduced into more or less mass production and was relatively widely used; the technology was so far widespread only in Moscow, and then began to be used in St. Petersburg.

Only by 1970 it came into operation in another 30 large cities of the Soviet Union.

Commercial cellular communications

The first steps towards the widespread introduction of cell phones and the commercialization of the industry were taken in 1982 by a British company Pye Telecommunications.

They demonstrated an automatic mobile phone that works as an attachment to a walkie-talkie Pocketphone 70. Theoretically, the device could be implemented everywhere.

Motorola

In 1983, Motorola introduced the first model of a truly commercial mobile phone, intended not only for organizations and departments, but also for individual users who simply could afford to purchase a device.

The device model was called DynaTAC 8000X, and it took the company almost 16 years to create it.

At the same time, a huge amount of money was invested in it, according to some sources - more than $110 million.

The device weighed almost 800 grams, had a length of 33 cm, a thickness of 4.5 cm, and a width of almost 9 cm.

The battery could operate autonomously for up to 9 hours in standby mode or 1 hour in talk mode, and this was the first phone with a battery charged from a mobile network.

The device was sold at a price of almost $4,000.

Spreading

The technology quickly became popular despite the fact that the first devices were very expensive for the average user.

But already in 1984, such phones (and the mobile communication format) were already used by more than 300,000 subscribers.

In 2003, this figure exceeded one billion two hundred million subscribers - it is generally accepted that it was in this year that the technology truly became widespread throughout the world and became firmly established in the life of the average user.

And on July 1, 1991, the first call made in the GSM format was made in Finland. And it is this date that is considered the birthplace of the widespread format that we use to this day. Even with the introduction of other wireless communication technologies and other types of networks, this communication format still remains the most widespread and is characterized by the largest coverage area on the globe.

In 1998, a prototype of the first device of this type with a touch-sensitive screen appeared.

This was an important step towards a qualitatively new type of mobile communication devices, including smartphones.

This first touch phone, in fact, became the progenitor of the devices we use today.

Throughout the 80s and 90s, the price of mobile phones fell, and by the early 2000s they, although still expensive, were becoming affordable to a larger portion of users.

And after 7-8 years, mobile communications will almost completely replace landline communications.

A person constantly needs communication. For information exchange and just for fun. And it’s not enough for him to communicate with the people who are nearby. There will always be something to say even to those who are on the next street, in another city or overseas. It has always been this way. But it was only at the end of the nineteenth century that we had such an opportunity. In this article we will trace the history of the appearance of the telephone, find out who invented the telephone and what difficulties scientists faced.

Over the years, there have been a variety of ways to transmit information. Our ancestors sent letters with messengers and carrier pigeons, burned bonfires, and used the services of heralds.

In the 16th century, the Italian Giovanni della Porta invented a system of speaking pipes, which were supposed to “permeate” the whole of Italy. This fantastic idea was not brought to life.

In 1837, American inventor Samuel Morse created the electric telegraph and developed the telegraph alphabet, which was called " Morse code».

In the 1850s, an unexpected discovery was made by Italian Antonio Meucci, living in New York. Convinced of the positive effects of electricity on human health, he assembled a generator and opened a private medical practice. One day, after connecting the wires to the patient’s lips, Meucci went into the back room to turn on the generator. Once the device is working, the doctor heard the patient scream. It was so loud and clear, as if the poor fellow was nearby.

Meucci began experimenting with the generator, and by the beginning of the 70s, the drawings of the device were already ready. telephony" In 1871, the inventor tried to register his brainchild, but something prevented him. Either the Italian did not have enough money for the registration procedure at the patent office, or the papers were lost during shipment, or perhaps they were stolen.

Who first invented the telephone and in what year

In 1861, German scientist Philip Rice came up with a device that could transmit all kinds of sounds via cable. This was the first telephone. (It’s worth familiarizing yourself with that and its history of creation) Rice failed to register a patent for his invention, so he did not become as widely known as the American Alexander Bell.

On 02/14/1876 Bell took the application to the Patent Office in Washington to patent " A telegraph device that can transmit human speech" Two hours later, Elisha Gray, an electrical engineering major, showed up. Gray's invention was called "A Device for Transmitting and Receiving Vocal Sounds by Telegraph." He was denied a patent.

This device consisted of a wooden stand, an ear tube, a battery (a vessel with acid) and wires. The inventor himself called it a gallows.

The first words spoken on the phone were: “Watson, this is Bell speaking!” If you can hear me, go to the window and wave your hat.”

In 1878, a series of trials against Alexander Bell began in America. About thirty people tried to take away his inventor's laurels. Six claims were dismissed outright. The claims of the remaining inventors were divided into 11 points and considered separately. On eight of these points, Bell's superiority was recognized; on the other three, the inventors Edison and McDonough won the case. Gray did not win a single case. Although a study of Bell's diaries and documents filed by Gray with the Patent Office many years later showed that the author of the invention is Gray.

Development and improvement of the phone

Thomas Edison took charge of the further fate of Bell's invention. In 1878, he made some changes to the structure of the telephone: he introduced a carbon microphone and an induction coil into the circuit. Thanks to this modernization, the distance between interlocutors could be significantly increased.

That same year, the first telephone exchange in history began operating in the small American town of New Chaven.

And in 1887 in Russia, the inventor K. A. Mossitsky created a self-acting switch - the prototype of automatic telephone exchanges.

Who invented the mobile (cellular) telephone

It is generally accepted that the birthplace of the mobile phone is the USA. But first mobile phone The device appeared in the Soviet Union. On November 4, 1957, radio engineer Leonid Kupriyanovich received a patent for “ Device for calling and switching radiotelephone communication channels" His radiotelephone could transmit audio signals to the base station at a distance of up to 25 kilometers. The device was a box with a dial dial, two toggle switches and a handset. It weighed half a kilo and worked for up to 30 hours in standby mode.

The idea of ​​​​creating cellular telephone communications appeared back in 1946 at the American company AT&T Bell Labs. The company was engaged in the rental of car radios.

In parallel with AT&T Bell Labs, Motorola also conducted research. For about ten years, each of these companies sought to get ahead of the competition. Motorola won.

In April 1973, one of the employees of this company, engineer Martin Cooper, “shared his joy” with colleagues from a competing company. He called the AT&T Bell Labs office, invited the head of the research department, Joel Engel, to the phone and said that he was currently on one of the streets of New York and talking on the world's first mobile phone. Cooper then went to a press conference dedicated to the miracle of technology that he held in his hands.

Motorola's "firstborn" was named Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. It weighed about a kilogram and reached 25 cm in height.. The phone could work in talk mode for about 30 minutes, and was charged for about 10 hours. And ten years later, in 1983, it finally went on sale. The new car cost a lot of money - $3500 - a little cheaper than a brand new car. But even despite this, there were plenty of potential buyers.

In 1992, Motorola released a mobile phone that could fit in the palm of your hand.

At the same time, the Finnish company Nokia introduced the first mass-produced GSM phone, Nokia 1011.

In 1993, thanks to BellSouth / IBM, the first communicator appeared - a telephone connected to a PDA.

And 1996 is the year the first flip phone was created. This is the merit of the same Motorola.

At this time, Nokia pleased the world with the first smartphone with an Intel 386 processor and a full QWERTY keyboard - Nokia 9000.

The average person makes almost one and a half thousand phone calls a year.

Who invented the touch phone

The great-grandfather of the famous iPhone is considered to be IBM Simon, released in 1994. It was the world's first touchphone. “Simon” cost a lot - $1090. But it was no longer just a phone. It combined the qualities of a telephone and a computer, and it could also be used as a pager or fax. It was equipped with a calculator, calendar, notepad, task list, a couple of games and even an email agent.

The device had a monochrome display with a resolution of 160×293 pixels and a diagonal of 4.7 inches. Instead of the usual keys, a virtual keyboard has appeared. The battery lasted for an hour of talk time or 12 hours of standby time.

The too high price did not allow the model to become popular among users, but it was “Simon” went down in history as the first touchphone.

In 2000, the world saw the first telephone, officially called a smartphone— Ericsson R380. The R380's touchscreen was hidden under a hinged cover with regular buttons. The screen was monochrome, with a diagonal of 3.5 inches and a resolution of 120x360.

The smartphone was based on the new Symbian OS for mobile devices. The R380 supported WAP, a browser, notepad, email client, and games were installed.

In 2007, IBM released the first phone whose sensor responded to the touch of a finger rather than a stylus. It was LG KE850 Prada. This model is also remembered for its unusual design and wide functionality.

In the same year, Apple introduced its famous iPhone to the general public.

More than a dozen years have passed since the appearance of the first mobile phone. Over time, they were constantly improved, new functions were added, and their sizes were reduced. But at one point, all the functions invented by engineers became cramped in the concept of “mobile phone.” This is how the concept of “communicator” arose, and then “smartphone”.

• Mobile phone(eng. mobile phone) – a portable communication device intended primarily for voice communication.
• Smartphone(English smartphone - smart phone) - a mobile phone, supplemented with the functionality of a pocket personal computer.
• Communicator(English communicator, PDA phone) – a pocket personal computer, supplemented with the functionality of a mobile phone.

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The presence of a fully functional operating system makes smartphones and communicators more attractive in the eyes of most users. Modern solutions (mid-price models and above) cope well with many tasks that go beyond telephone calls: working with email, viewing text documents and spreadsheets, working with a task scheduler and many others. Expanding the functionality of phones is possible through J2ME programs, which are supported by almost all mobile devices. The screen of a number of phones is as good as most smartphones, and many models are equipped with a memory card slot.

It is important to note that programs written specifically for the operating system of a smartphone or communicator are complete sequences of low-level microprocessor commands compiled into binary code. Specialized applications use processor resources more efficiently and, as a rule, have greater functionality than “universal” J2ME programs.

However, for most users this circumstance is not the main selection criterion. Smartphones are promoted by manufacturers due to other factors, such as:

• Advanced multimedia features (better camera, enhanced video playback capabilities, improved music capabilities);
• Increasing the number of cores and processor frequency;
• Using a unique model design;
• Protecting the device from external influences.

The history of smartphones

What is the first smartphone? They tried to combine the functionality of a mobile phone and a communicator almost immediately after the appearance of the first communicators in the early 90s of the last century.