Title: History of the telephone - Wikipedia
Headings: History of the telephone
History of the telephone
Contents
Telephone prehistory
Mechanical and acoustic devices
Electrical devices
Main article: Electrical telegraph
Invention of the telephone
Telephone exchange
Early telephone developments
Early commercial instruments
20th-century developments
Digital telephone technology
Main article: Digital telephony
Further information: Push-button telephone and Speech coding
Women's usage in the 20th century
21st-century developments
See also
References
Further reading
External links

Content: Elisha Gray, 1876, designed a telephone using a water microphone in Highland Park, Illinois. Tivadar Puskás proposed the telephone switchboard exchange in 1876. Thomas Edison invented the carbon microphone which produced a strong telephone signal. The master telephone patent granted to Bell, 174465, March 10, 1876
The modern telephone is the result of work of many people. Alexander Graham Bell was, however, the first to patent the telephone, as an "apparatus for transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically". Bell has most often been credited as the inventor of the first practical telephone. However, in Germany Johann Philipp Reis is seen as a leading telephone pioneer who stopped only just short of a successful device, and as well the Italian-American inventor and businessman Antonio Meucci has been recognized by the U.S. House of Representatives for his contributory work on the telephone. Several other controversies also surround the question of priority of invention for the telephone. The Elisha Gray and Alexander Bell telephone controversy considers the question of whether Bell and Gray invented the telephone independently and, if not, whether Bell stole the invention from Gray. This controversy is narrower than the broader question of who deserves credit for inventing the telephone, for which there are several claimants.