The telephone was invented in the 1870′s and patented in 1876 by Alexander Graham Bell. Bell’s patent application barely preceded an application submitted by his competitor Elisha Gray. After a heated patent battle between Bell and Gray, which Bell won, Bell founded the Bell Telephone Company, which later came to be called the American Telephone and Telegraph Company.
Starting in 1879, 26 patents were filed for various dials and buttons which were either too expensive or cumbersome to use. The first use of a dial phone was in 1892 in La Porte, Indiana based on a 1891 patent by Almon Brown Strowger. In 1919 the American Bell Telephone Company began national service for user controlled rotary dial phones.
At first, the transmission of phone calls between callers and recipients was carried out manually, by switchboard operators. In 1923, however, automation began with Antoine Barnay’s development of the rotary telephone dial. This dial caused the emission of variable electrical impulses that could be decoded automatically and used to link the telephone sets of callers and call recipients. In time, the rotary dial system gave way to push-button dialing and other more modern networking techniques.
The telephone has become the world’s most important communication device. Most adults use it between six and eight times per day, for personal and business calls. This widespread use has developed because huge changes have occurred in telephones and telephone networks. For example, automatic switching and the rotary dial system were only the beginning of changes in phone calling.