Juan Monroy — Media Technologies: Telephone

Invention of telephone
- improvement to the existing telegraph
- vocal sounds over electrical current
- simultaneously discovered
- coincidentally patented February 14, 1876
Alexander Graham Bell
- teacher of deaf students
  - professor of elocution
  - wife and mother were deaf
- developed telephone to amplify voice
- worked on a harmonic telegraph
  - “phonautograph”
  - sound waves
  - electrical currents
Elisha Gray
- started Western Electric, 1865
- simultaneous discovery of telephone
- filed patent caveat on same day as Bell filed patent
Patent Battle
- common in the 19th century
- February 14, 1876
- liquid transmitter
  - Bell’s patent application
  - Gray’s patent caveat
- Patent granted to Bell, March 7, 1876
- March 10, 1876
  - “Mr. Watson, Come Here.”
Philadelphia Exposition
- Centennial exposition
- 1876
- Bell publicly introduced the telephone telephone
- “My God, it talks”
- telephone became a popular hit of the exposition
Commercial Application
- doctors and merchants
- rented, not sold telephones
- social tool as expressed in slogans
Telephone Apparatus
- single megaphone
- transmitter
- receiver
- improved by Emile Berliner’s microphone
- unlike the telegraph, telephone entered the home
Telephone Switching
- switchboard
- women operators replaced messenger boys
- telephone numbers
- automatic dialing
- public branch exchange (PBX)
- local area networks (LAN)
Western Union
- rebuffed Bell’s $100,000 offer
  - later seen as short-sighted
  - enabled Kronos effect
- established own competing service
  - sued by Bell for patent infringement
  - lost to Bell and exited telephone business
Growth of Bell Telephone
- National Bell
- American Bell
- American Telephone and Telegraph
Growth of AT&T
- Bell Telephone
  - local exchanges
  - bought competing services
  - established long-distance network
  - expanded AT&T owned network
- Western Electric
  - phone manufacturing
  - launched by Elisha Gray, 1865
  - supplied electrical equipment to Western Union
  - sold to Western Union, 1875
  - acquired by AT&T, 1881
- Bell Laboratories
  - founded 1925
  - research and development
  - originated some of the biggest innovations of the 20th century
    - radio astronomy
    - transistor
    - laser
    - charge-coupled device (CCD)
    - Unix operating system
    - C, C++, and S programming languages
AT&T the Monopoly
- Theodore Vail
- “One Policy, One System, Universal Service” (1907)
- Kingsbury Commitment (1913)
- anti-trust exemption
- natural monopoly
- universal service
- closed network
Universal Service
- standardize service
- party lines
- black telephones
Long Distance Communication
- Lee de Forest, Western Electric, 1906
- audion triode vacuum tube
- light bulb
- Fleming valve
- amplified electrical signals
- making long-distance voice transmissions practical
AT&T Expands Long Distance
- 1915: transcontinental line, New York to San Francisco
- 1918: transoceanic line
- 1927: Radiotelephony, New York to London
- 1947: replaced vacuum tubes with transistors
- 1956: transatlantic cable, high speed data
- 1989: transpacific fiber optic cable, California to Japan
Telstar
- communication satellite
- continental and oceanic footprint
- connecting North America with Europe
- launched 1962
- used for telephone, radio, and television
Opening of AT&T Network
- Hush-a-Phone (1956)
  - introduced 1922
  - acoustic aid for privacy and hearing
  - AT&T declared an unauthorized “foreign attachment,” 1948
  - FCC agreed, 1955
  - US Court of Appeals overruled FCC, 1956
- Carterphone (1968)
  - two-way radio transmitter
  - acoustically connected to the telephone
  - allowed receiving of calls away from the phone
  - FCC allowed devices to connect to AT&T’s telephone network, 1968
  - paved way for answering machines and fax machines
Breakup of AT&T (1984)
- “natural monopoly” since 1913
  - local telephone
  - long-distance
- broken up in 1984
  - seven “Baby Bells”
  - AT&T retained long-distance market
  - new long-distance competitors
Effects of AT&T Breakup
- New Hardware
  - Fax machines
  - Answer machines
  - Touchtone telephones
  - Modems
- Long Distance Competition
Analog
- a form of the original source
- an analogy of the original
  - human voice
  - electrical current
  - signal is proportional to the source
Digital
- a form of computer code
- digital representation of an electrical signal
  - original source
  - electrical current
  - digital signal is binary code
Telephone 2.0
- convergence of media
- mobile telephone is the primary screen
  - voice communication
  - information services
  - streaming audio and video
The Cycle
- Described by Tim Wu
- Media Technologies, mentioned in The Master Switch
  - invention
  - disruption
  - consolidation
  - division
  - reorganization
Telecommunications Act 1996
- Replaced Federal Communications Act
- consolidated telecommunications industries
  - local telephone
  - long distance telephone
  - multichannel video
  - wireless telephone
Reorganization
- Baby Bells grew after TCA96
- Three major companies
  - Verizon
  - Qwest
  - AT&T, formerly Southwest Bell
- Reach expanded to wireless (mobile) telephone