Beginnings of telecommunications

The physics teacher Johann Philipp Reis presents his latest invention to the Physikalischer Verein in Frankfurt am Main: the telephone (Greek tele = remote, phonae = voice). It was able to transmit speech far away with the help of electricity. He took the idea from his lessons, where he built an artifical auricle. But the sound transmission still fluctuated greatly, which curbed the enthusiasm of his colleagues.

By 1863 Reis improved his apparatus and sold a few copies for scientific demonstration purposes. Reis can no longer follow the further course of the phone. In 1874 he died of tuberculosis.

The Scottish deaf-mute teacher Alexander Graham Bell gets a rice phone and starts tinkering with it.

Bell was born into a scholarly family. Like him, his father and grandfather were already engaged in research into sound. In addition to his commitment to the deaf and mute, Bell focused on acoustics and speech technology.

In 1873 Bell moved to Boston to teach speech technology and physiology of the voice at the university there. In 1882 he received the US citizenship.

The Italian Antonio Meucci also came up with the idea of ​​remote voice transmission. In 1871 he submitted a patent application for his Telettrofono, which was not granted for over two years and then expired. Meucci then submitted his documents to the American District Telegraph Co. to test his invention on their telegraphs.

Meucci demands his equipment and documents back, whereupon he is informed that they have been lost. Alexander Bell is now working on Meucci's models for "his" version of the telephone at the American District Telegraph Co.

At that time, various inventors were working on designs for the first usable phone at the same time. A competition for the patent breaks out around the world.

On February 14, 1876, Bell filed a patent for his telephone set, although it was not working yet. That made him two hours faster than the American Elisha Gray. In contrast to Bell's model, Gray's phone has proven itself in practice and not just on paper.

Bell's patent is granted on March 7, 1876. Many critics strongly doubt that the patent process went fair. After the approval, Bell rebuilt his prototype as Gray had described in his patent license, whereupon Bell's apparatus started to work. Objections and legal proceedings followed by Gray against Bell, but without great success: the patent for the telephone remained in Bell's hands.

Antonio Meucci also tried for years to obtain the patent or financial compensation from Bell - without success. Antonio Meucci died an impoverished man in New York in 1889.

Today, Bell is often mistakenly named as the sole inventor of the telephone. In fact, he took up the ideas and attempts of his predecessors and competitors (Reis, Meucci, Gray) and developed their models further. Bell helped the phone to get it ready for the market and was the first to capitalize on the invention.

It was not until 113 years after Antonio Meucci's death that the House of Representatives of the American Congress of the United States honored him in a resolution for his work on the development of the telephone.

Whether a long-awaited happy ending or much too late, one thing is certain. We owe the state of our telecommunications to a number of pioneers. One knowledge led to another and developed the telephone further. From Johann Philipp Reis to Steve Jobs. Who knows how we will be telephoning in 100 years.