• Home

• 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

Fun facts

(Fun Fact 1)

From the moment Alexander Graham Bell spoke those famous words " Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you!” the business of providing telephone service was off and running. Several days after making his famous statement Mr. Bell was testing his new telephone instrument over a longer distance. Bell and Watson were upstairs with one phone while Charles Williams was downstairs using the other one. Someone yelled for Bell and as he went to the other room he handed the instrument to Watson and said, "Here, hold this"; thus the term "putting someone on hold" was born.

(Fun Fact 2)

The first operators were boys. They worked cheap but were impatient and rude when dealing with customers. Their rudeness caused them to be fired within a short while and they were soon replaced by females who were described as being, "calm and gracious."