The death of analogue phones is approaching rapidly. As you may know the Openreach PSTN Switch Off is happening in December 2025. This means traditional telephony lines will no longer operate. Many services still depend on phone lines, this means you will have to upgrade those before the switch off happens.
In celebration of the phone, we wanted to share some interesting facts about telephony with you.
5 Telephony facts you may find interesting
- 1849, Antonio Meucci creates the first very basic phone. He set up a voice-communication apparatus linking his second-floor bedroom to his laboratory. However, he was denied a patent for his device by the U.S Patent Office. This is because there was no mention of electromagnetic transmission of vocal sounds in his caveat.
- Alexander Bell makes the first phone call in 1876. Bell later won the first U.S patent for the device. Bell’s mother and wife were both deaf, which influenced his life’s work. It is exactly his research into hearing and speaking that led him to experimenting with hearing devices winning him the patent.
- The first ever phone book listed 50 individuals, businesses and offices. Though Individuals were not in alphabetical order nor had any numbers associated with them. It was in 1879, that Dr. Moses Greeley Parker suggested changing it to be in alphabetical order and associating each telephone with a unique number.
- 1995, VocalTec releases the first VoIP software named “Internet Phone”. Although many people called this product ‘iPhone’.
- 87% of UK adults owned a smartphone in 2020. You may not know, but the first ‘smartphone’ released in 1994. The device was not known as a ‘smartphone’ back then, but it possessed many features we see today. You could take notes, send emails and messages and even access a calendar. The whole device weighed around 500 grams.
Hopefully these were of some interest to you, and remember, you must upgrade your services to internet based solutions. This is to ensure your business can continue running without any disruptions.
