A landline telephone is connected by a pair of wires to the telephone network, while a mobile phone, such as a cellular phone (which first became commercially available in the early 1980s) is portable and communicates with the telephone network by radio transmissions.ntil approximately the 1970s most telephones used a rotary dial, which was superseded by the modern DTMF push-button dial, first introduced to the public by AT&T in 1963. The receiver and transmitter are usually built into a handset which is held up to the ear and mouth during conversation.