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Definition: telephone from Dictionary of Computing

a machine used for speaking to someone or communicating with another computer using a modem over a long distance

telephone

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
device for communicating sound, especially speech, usually by means of wires in an electric circuit. The telephones now in general use evolved from the device invented by Alexander Graham Bell and patented by him in 1876 and 1877. Although Bell is recognized as the inventor, his telephone was preceded by many attempts to produce such an instrument. The principles on which it is based, and effective model instruments, were developed by different men at so nearly the same time that there are disputes about priority. In Bell's instrument, an electric current varied in intensity and frequency in accordance with sound waves. The sound waves caused a thin plate of soft iron, called the diaphragm, to vibrate. The vibrations disturbed the magnetic field of a bar magnet placed near the diaphragm, and this disturbance induced an electric current in a wire wound about the magnet. That current, when transmitted to a distant identical instrument, caused the diaphragm in it to vibrate, reproducing…
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Full text Article telephone

From Philip's Encyclopedia
Local telephone exchanges (1) connect local calls...
Instrument that communicates speech sounds over a distance by means of wires or microwaves. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell invented a prototype, which employed a diaphragm of soft iron that vibrated to sound waves. These vibrations caused disturbances in the magnetic field of a bar magnet, causing…
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Full text Article telephone

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
device for communicating sound, especially speech, usually by means of wires in an electric circuit. The telephones now in general use evolved from the device invented by Alexander Graham Bell and patented by him in 1876 and 1877. Although Bell is recognized as the inventor, his telephone was…
| 960 words
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Full text Article Telephone

From The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Business, Labor, and Economic History
In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell devised the technology for the electronic communication of the human voice between two points—a technology involving variations in an electric current responding to the sound waves created by human speech. By 1878 a “switchboard” permitted any telephone user to reach…
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Full text Article Telephone

From The Oxford Encyclopedia of the History of American Science, Medicine, and Technology
The telephone is a device for the two-way transmission of human speech. That definition has been muddied by the multiplication of new electronic gadgets. Many devices we do not call telephones can also transmit speech, and the smart phones of the early twenty-first century have been packed with many…
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Full text Article Telephone

From Encyclopedia of American Studies
At the telephone; Blanche Ring's telephone song....
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Full text Article telephone

From Dictionary of Leisure, Travel and Tourism
a machine used for speaking to someone who is a long way away We had a new telephone system installed last week. (NOTE: The word telephone is often shortened to phone: phone call, phone book, etc., but not in the expressions telephone switchboard, telephone operator, telephone exchange. ) ⃞ to be on…
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Full text Article Telephone

From Encyclopedia of International Media and Communications Full text Article Contents by Subject Area
I. Technical Basics II. History III. Regulation IV. Market Structure V. Policy Issues GLOSSARY Communication Act of 1934 Legislation that created the Federal Communications Commission. competitive local exchange carrier A company that is providing local telephone service in competition with the…
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Full text Article telephone

From The Chambers Dictionary
an instrument for reproducing sound at a distance, esp by means of electricity; specif an instrument with a microphone and a receiver mounted on a handset, for transmitting speech; the system of communication which uses these instruments. vt to contact and speak to by telephone; to convey (a…
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A “telephone” is an apparatus for the transmission of human speech or other sounds over distances greater than the limits of ordinary human audibility. The business of transmitting information by telephone is quasi-public in character. The law treats telephone companies both as common carriers of…
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Full text Article TELEPHONE, The

From The Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales
The British telephone system was developed in the 1880s by the United Telephone Company, the Post Office and others as a series of local networks that were later connected - an arrangement notably different from the London -centred postal service . By 1882, there were telephone exchanges in Cardiff…
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