Title: telephone | History, Definition, Invention, Uses, & Facts | Britannica
Headings: Telephone
Telephone
Learn how Alexander Graham Bell went to revolutionize telegraphy but instead invented the telephone
What is a telephone?
When was the telephone patented?
When was the telephone introduced to the public?
Who is credited as the inventor of the telephone?
When did the first transmission of speech occur with a telephone?
The telephone instrument
Working components of the telephone
Power source
Switch hook

Content: Who is credited as the inventor of the telephone? Alexander Graham Bell is credited with developing the telephone because he received the first patent. When did the first transmission of speech occur with a telephone? The first transmission of speech with a telephone occurred on March 10, 1876, from Alexander Graham Bell to Thomas Watson, which Bell transcribed in his lab notes as “Mr. Watson—come here—I want to see you.” This article describes the functional components of the modern telephone and traces the historical development of the telephone instrument. In addition it describes the development of what is known as the public switched telephone network (PSTN). For discussion of broader technologies, see the articles telecommunications system and telecommunications media. For technologies related to the telephone, see the articles mobile telephone, videophone, fax and modem. The telephone instrument
The word telephone, from the Greek roots tēle, “far,” and phonē, “sound,” was applied as early as the late 17th century to the string telephone familiar to children, and it was later used to refer to the megaphone and the speaking tube, but in modern usage it refers solely to electrical devices derived from the inventions of Alexander Graham Bell and others. Within 20 years of the 1876 Bell patent, the telephone instrument, as modified by Thomas Watson, Emil Berliner, Thomas Edison, and others, acquired a functional design that has not changed fundamentally in more than a century.