Smartphones Make Up 94.2% Of All Devices Used To Access The Internet

On April 25, we observe National Telephone Day. Around the world, there are 18.22 billion mobile phones. And while some predicted the landline to be obsolete by 2020, by 2024 about 840 million landlines still exist around the world, with 88 million in the US.

• 1667 – Robert Hooke, a British physicist, invents the ‘tin can telephone,’ also known as the ‘lovers’ phone.’
• 1828 – The Word “Telephone” Was Used Before The Telephone Existed. The term predated the device as we know it. The word “telephone” was first used by Francois Sudre to describe his invention, a musical signaling device.
• 1876 – Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone, beating Elisha Gray by a matter of hours. The very first permanent outdoor telephone wire was completed. It stretched a distance of just three miles.
  • Three days after the patent was approved, Bell spoke the first words by telephone to his assistant. “Mr. Watson, come here! I want to see you!”
  • “Ahoy” was the original telephone greeting.  Alexander Graham Bell suggested ‘ahoy’ (as used in ships), but was later superseded by Thomas Edison, who suggested ‘hello’ instead.
• 1876 – A cash-strapped Alexander Graham Bell offered to sell his telephone patent to Western Union for $100,000. They declined.
• 1876 – Bell and his team first public demonstration at the World’s Fair in Philadelphia. In a crowded Machinery Hall, a man’s voice transmitted from a small horn and carried out through a speaker to the audience.
• 1877 – One year later, the White House installed its first phone. The telephone revolution began.
• 1877 – Bell Telephone Company was founded on July 9, 1877, and they installed the first public telephone lines from Boston to Somerville, Massachusetts, the same year.
• 1878 – The first phonebook in history was just one page long. The first telephone directory, consisting of a single piece of cardboard, was issued on 21 February 1878; it listed 50 individuals, businesses, and other offices in New Haven, Connecticut that had telephones. The directory was not alphabetized, and no numbers were associated with the people included in it.
• 1878 – The District Telephone Company of New Haven was established on January 28, 1878, becoming the first commercial telephone exchange in the world.
• 1879 – Initially, subscribers to the telephone service were listed by name, and no numbers were assigned to them. People had to provide names to telephone operators to connect to them. The first telephone numbers were used in 1879 in Massachusetts
• 1880 – On June 3, 1880, Alexander Graham Bell transmitted the first wireless telephone message on his “photophone.” The device allowed for the transmission of sound on a beam of light, without wires.  This technology was a rudimentary version of what we know as fiber optics today.
• 1900s – Early users quickly realized the phone’s potential for mischief. In the 1900s, prank calls to grocers, claiming to be neighbors needing peculiar items, became a trend.
• 1904 – The French Phone was developed by the Bell company. This had the transmitter and receiver in a simple handset in 1904.
• 1908 – The first U.S. patent for a mobile phone was issued in 1908 in Kentucky to Nathan B. Stubblefield. The patent was for a radiotelephone.
• 1910 – New York Telephone had 6,000 women telephone operators by 1910.
• 1915 – Bell, located in New York, calls Thomas Watson in San Francisco.
• 1918 – During World War I, field telephones allowed soldiers to relay real-time information from trenches. This innovation made communication faster and more precise, changing the face of military strategy forever.
• 1927 – The first transatlantic call was made between New York and London. Operators used radio signals to bridge the gap, an achievement celebrated worldwide for shrinking global distances.
• 1936 – Salvador Dalí’s 1936 piece Lobster Telephone turned the device into surreal art.
• 1967 – In May of 1967, the 100 millionth telephone line was installed in the United States.
• 1967 – Governors and dignitaries for U.S. territories joined President Lyndon Johnson on the largest conference call ever held up to that date.
• 1983 – The first mobile phone was born in 1983, and it was called the DynaTAC 8000x. It was made by Motorola and looked like other telephones from its time, except that it didn’t have wires! It took 10 hours to charge fully, and you could use it for only 30 minutes.
• 1992 – The first smartphone was created in 1992 and made available in 1994. It was created by IBM, and the model was known as the Simon Personal Communicator.
• 2019 – statistics reveal that there are around 8 billion mobile phones, compared to 7 billion people alive on earth.
• According to a survey, 47 percent of all water-damaged mobile phones in the UK have been dropped in the toilet bowl.
• Mark Twain was one of the first to have a phone in his home.
• Frigensophobia is the fear that using your mobile is damaging your brain.
• Addiction to mobile phones is called nomophobia.
• Smartphone make up 94.2% of all devices used to access the internet
• Payphones are still used by five percent of the population, at least once per year.
• Mobile phones have 18 times more bacteria than toilet handles.
• The phrase “to put someone on hold” was named after Alexander and his assistant, Mr. Watson, when Bell handed Watson the phone and said, “here, hold this.”
• 41% of people under 25 hate it when you don’t pick up the phone after you have just texted them.
• The automatic dialing system was invented by Almon Brown Strowger. Strowger, an undertaker who, like other subscribers, used the services of telephone operators who connected calls to and from his place of business. One of the telephone operators was a competitor’s wife. Strowger believed that she sent calls that were supposed to be for his business to her husband instead.
• In London, red phone boxes became photo backdrops and even emergency shelters during heavy rain.
• In Japan, some phone booths have transformed into goldfish aquariums, showcasing their versatility in cultural settings.

Sources

National Day Calendar

Knowlarity

Live About

Ring Central

Sutori

UltaTel

The Fact File

National Today

Days of the Year