Telecommunications equipment is now a huge and important aspect to any modern day business, but it was only 125 years ago the telephone alone was invented. Before then business communication would have been very different to today, in which we rely on many different telecommunications equipment from our broadband network through to mobile phone technology. Here in this article we shall look at the telephone’s beginnings, which highlight just how far technology has come along and has had to adapt in order to provide for the fast-paced modern world.

Before the introduction of the telephone in telecommunications equipment, there were mechanical devices for communicating spoken words over the greater distance of speech. The earliest forms of mechanical telephones were based on sound transmission through pipes; speaking tubes were very common and were used aboard ships where they can still be found today. Another device that predated the telephone was the ‘tin can telephone’ or ‘lover’s phone’ as it was known for years, it connected two diaphragms with a taut wire which transmitted sound with mechanical vibrations and not by an electrical current.

Actual credit for the invention of the telephone, one of the main inventions in telecommunications equipment still used today is often disputed. Several inventors such as Charles Bourseul, Antonio Meucci, Johann Philipp Reis, Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray have all been credited. The early history of the telephone is complicated with many law suits concerning the patent, but Bell and Edison patents were victorious and known commercially. Alexander Graham Bell is often widely seen as the inventor of the telephone but there is speculation that Bell stole the invention from Gray, but a lot of the controversy that surrounds this is based on who deserves credit for inventing the telephone.

The early telephone was pretty complex, some used liquid transmitters but these quickly went out of use. Some telephones used diaphragms that wiggled a coil of wire in the field of a permanent magnet; these types lasted in smaller numbers through to the 20th century in military telecommunications equipment. These were critical due to the fact they could create their own electrical power. Most common telephones however used Edison/ Berliner carbon transmitters. By 1904 there were over three million phones in the United States, which were connected by manual switchboard exchanges.

Today telephones play a massive part in communication, although the introduction or the internet and email have changed the way we communicate. It is impressive to think how far technology has changed over the years to accommodate to our business and personal demands, a business in modern day cannot survive without telecommunications equipment.

Dominic Donaldson is an expert in technology.
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[tags]Telecommunications Equipment, Network Communications, Telephones[/tags]