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• Preface

• Alexander Graham Bell

• Telecommunications history

• How the telephone works

• Phone FUN facts

• Why the Phone Works When the Lights GO OUT

• FTTP (Fiber to the Prem)

• Future of Telecommunications

• Crossword Puzzle

• Word Search

• Glossary

• Credits

• Speech by Thomas Watson

The History of Telecommunications ... cont

Today’s telephones use electric microphones for transmitters while transducers (speakers) are used for receivers.

Bell, when first experimenting with the telephone, was using a funnel packed with carbon filaments to reproduce sound. Soon after first inventing the telephone, there were many inventors and wealthy individuals trying to corner the telephone market. But Bell and his partners, Gardiner Greene Hubbard and George Sanders, were quick. They aggressively invented and patented phones and phone related inventions. On July 9, 1877 they formed the first Bell telephone company. A few other companies were competing for customers and more tried to enter the market, but eventually failed.

Stepping back in time for a moment, some say, Francis Bacon, in his 1627 book, “New Utopia,” predicted the telephone would some day be invented. In that book he described a long “speaking tube,” that carried voices over long distances. A real telephone wouldn’t be invented for around another 250 years