"Mr. Watson -- come here -- I want to see you." Alexander Graham Bell had no idea what

would happen as a result of these words. These words sparked off a revolution in the way

we communicate with each other. What are we talking about? The telephone. Bell, its

inventor, uttered these words to his assistant sitting in the next room over an instrument

he called a “harmonic telegraph”.

Its been more than a century and a quarter since that day on 10 March 1876, and

telephones have grown exponentially in popularity, technologically and socially. The first

telephones were diverse devices, consisting of 2 parts – a receiver and a transmitter. It

required continuous cranking, or the conversation would end.

Early telephones were identified individually by names, not by numbers. I wasn’t until

1879 that an alphanumeric identification system was used for a phone. The earliest

telephone exchange was established in New Haven, and there were concerns that

the telephone operators might not know all the subscribers individually. Hence, the

brainstorm for assigning unique alphanumeric identities, in a 2-letter 5-digit format.

The use of operators was discontinued in 1924, when it was seen that the electronic

system of switching calls was far more reliable. This technology was developed by

Almond Brown Stroger, who invented the first dial telephone and installed automatic

exchanges in the US and Europe.

A young inventor, Dr. Lee De Forest, began work in 1906 on applying what was known

as an "audion," a three-element vacuum tube, which could amplify radio waves. He

recognized the potential for installing audions or repeaters on telephone lines to amplify

the sound waves at mid-points along the wires. The Bell System bought the rights to De

Forest's patents in 1913. Long-distance telephone service was constructed on the New

York to San Francisco circuit using loading coils and repeaters.

By this time, use of the telephone had become widespread and there was a need for

communication between the US and Europe. The first transatlantic service, from New

York to London was establised in 1927, and was transmitted by radio waves. Research in

electronic telephone exchanges began in 1936 in Bell Labs, and was ultimately perfected

in the 1960s with its Electronic Switching System (ESS).

Changes were underway in the 1950s. There were initial consumers objections to all-

numeral telephone numbers that had been introduced in the latter half of the decade

due to the demand for telephones. The alphanumeric system had almost run out of

combinations to supply unique identities. To counter this problem, the fully-numeric

system was introduced. The laying of transatlantic telephone cables began in 1955.

Care was taken to ensure that the submarine repeaters would be of the highest quality,

guaranteed to last at least twenty years before replacement would be required.

The Bell System, with the collaboration of NASA, launched Telstar, the world's

first international communications satellite into orbit on July 10, 1962. Satellites in

geosynchronous orbit are used mostly for long-distance service. Videophones, developed

in the mid-1960s, were becoming more affordable and practical with the combination of

devices that eased the transmission and reception of both audio and video signals over

telephone lines.

The early 1980s saw a radical breakthrough in the telephone era with the development

of fiber optics. This technology had the potential to carry greater volumes of calls than

satellite or microwave links. Electrical telephone signals are fed into tiny semiconductor

lasers, which produce pulses of light in response to incoming signals and are bounced

down the inside of extremely thin glass fibers.

It was around this time that the world saw the advent of a phenomenon that would spread

wide and far – the mobile phone. Although first tested way back in 1910 by Lars Magnus

Ericsson, who installed a telephone in his car. It was used by stopping at places where

regular telephone services were available, and connecting it to the tower by means of two

electrode rods.

Ericsson further developed this idea and created the first fully automatic mobile phone system,

called the MTA (Mobile Telephone system A). It was released in Sweden in 1965 and was a first

in not needing any kind of base stations. It was not without ambiguities either – it weighed an

astounding 40 kilograms. Shortly thereafter, an upgraded version, the MTB, was released. This

unit used transistors and employed the DTMF signaling system.

The first truly mobile cell phone however, was the brainchild of Leonid Kupriyanovich, a young

and dynamic Soviet radio engineer from Moscow in 1957. This mobile phone consisted of a

relatively small-sized handset equipped with an antenna and rotary dial, and communicated with

a base station. Kupriyanovich's "radiophone" had 3 kilogram of total weight, could operate up to

20 or 30 kilometers, and had 20 or 30 hours of battery lifespan

In 1958, Kupriyanovich resized his "radiophone" to "pocket" version. The weight of

improved "light" handset was about 500 grams.

One common factor of all these phone systems was that they had to be used within a

certain vicinity of the base station. This seriously curtailed the portability of the unit as

the user might move out of the required range. This issue was resolved by Bell Labs,

which developed a “transfer” system, where the call could be “handed-off” to the next

available network.

It was after this that the cell phone industry hit a home run.

By 1987 there were over one million cell phone users in the US alone. It seemed as

if everyone wanted a cell phone and the major companies involved had found the

next big thing. However, there were difficulties. For example, in the US, the FCC is

the body that regulates and allocates radio bandwidth for different purposes. The

radio spectrum is limited and can become ‘full’, so it is necessary to curtail who

gets use of different parts of it. The area they licensed for cell phones, at 800 MHz

became clogged. However, instead of giving more bandwidth, the FCC forced the

cell phone companies to come up with newer technology and more efficient ways of

utilizing the existing bandwidth they had. Thus began the race to create newer and

yet newer innovations for the cellular phone.

The first generation phones (1G) were essentially devices to just make and receive

calls. It weighed as much as a brick, and was primarily used as car phones, while

there were some models being able to carried around in a bag, with an extra

battery or two.

By the 90s, technology had come up with newer mobile systems like the GSM and

CDMA networks. It enabled cell phones to be used as a medium for a variety of

applications. 2G phones became much smaller due to advancements in battery

technology, as well as computer chip technology. Using digital circuit switched

transmissions, this gave faster network signaling, lowering the amount of dropped

calls and increasing call quality. As 2G digital networks were online, most of the

time, they replaced analog network frequencies, effectively making them obsolete.

Presently, mobile operators have developed the latest in cell phone technology, the 3G

system. It incorporates several new additions to the phone, enabling it to be used as much

more than a phone. This includes streaming audio and video, WiFi access and Bluetooth

technology.