Tik-109/110.300
Telecommunications architectures:
History of telecommunications networks
Hannu H. KARI/Helsinki University of Technology (HUT)
TML-laboratory/CS/HUT
Tik-109/110.300 Fall 2000
© Hannu H. Kari
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Agenda
1. Chicken or Egg?
2. Early history
3. 1900-2000
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Chicken or Egg?
• Wired or wireless communication
• Wireless
• Hand signals, fire beacons, flags, mechanical semaphores,
telegraph
• Telegraph (Telegraph: Tele=Far;
Graph=Graphien=To Write)
• Telephone
• Radio
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Early history
• 1753
• Charles Morrison, in Europe, proposes an electrostatic
telegraph system in which the use of 26 insulated wires
conducting charges from a Leyden jar cause movements in
small pieces of paper on which each letter of the alphabet is
written.
• 1763
• Bosolus describes a system similar to Morrison's except he
uses only two wires, and a letter code.
• 1799
• Volta, in Italy, develops the "Voltaic Pile," or battery.
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Early history
• 1820
• Sept. 18 – Schweigger invents his "multiplier," the
electromagnetic coil.
• 1830
• Needle Galvanometers were in use in England to indicate
railroad track conditions & control trains.
• 1831
• Faraday discovers the properties of induction between
parallel conductors.
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Early history
• 1832
• Nicholas demonstrates a 5-needle electric telegraph in
Berlin. Schilling, a Russian diplomat, demonstrates his
electric telegraph in Germany. The system uses five
numerical indicator needles which are used to identify a
specific 5-digit code.
• A code dictionary relates these codes to words.
• Morse makes his first notes regarding his "Recording Electric
Magnetic Telegraph" and a dot - dash alphabet code. Later,
Jackson claims credit for Morse's invention, saying he had
supplied key information.
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Telegraph pictures
5-needle
sounder
key
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register
© Hannu H. Kari
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Morse code and others
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
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.-...
-.-.
-..
.
..-.
--.
....
..
.---..-..
--
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
-.
--.--.
--..-.
...
......--..-.---..
© Hannu H. Kari
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Early history
• 1833
• Gauss and Weber apply the idea of Schweigger's multiplier
to telegraphy.
• 1833
• Samuel Morse demonstrated first device to send signals over
wires. Close switch on 1 end of wire, mark paper tape on
other end. Device used to mark signals is called a
REGISTER. Not until 1849 did people think of receiving code
by ear. Designed a SOUNDER - mounted in a wooden box (a
resonator) to mechanically amplify sound.
• 1835
• Morse (44 years old) develops the concept of the "Morse
Register" and a numbered-word code.
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Early history
• 1836
• Morse builds his first functional telegraph instrument (now
located in the National Museum in Washington). It consists
of an old picture frame fastened to a table. The wheels of an
old wooden clock, which are moved by a weight, carry a thin
strip of paper forward. Morse demonstrates the instrument
to several friends, including Leonard D. Gale. Schilling
simplifies his electric telegraph to use a single needle and a
more precise code. Morse invents the "relay” to solve the
problem of current loss on long lines.
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Early history
• 1837
• June 10 – The Cooke and Wheatstone electric "Five Needle
Telegraph" is patented (#7390) in London. The instrument
requires six wires between each of its stations. This
European telegraph had no means of recording messages;
Morse felt this to be a great disadvantage.
• 1838
• Implementation of Morse's first letter code. Each letter of
type had sawteeth filed in the edge to activate the sending
machine. A letter's code symbol length was based upon the
various quantities of type found in the printer's office. The
register was an electromagnet-activated pen, drawing the
sawtooth symbols on a thin strip of moving paper.
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Early history
• 1838
• Jan 24 – Morse demonstrates his telegraph over a ten mile
circuit at N.Y. University. Transmission speed was recorded
at 10 w.p.m.
• Steinheil, in Germany, publishes improvements to the Gauss
and Weber work. He also discovers "earth return" (ground).
• 1839
• June 26 – Morse applies for an English patent on his Electric
Telegraph, but is turned down because of the information
already published by Cooke and Wheatstone (June 10, 1837)
on their "Magnetic Needle Telegraph.
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Early history
• 1842
• Telegraph poles and ceramic insulators are in regular use in
Europe. Morse installs a submarine cable between Castle
Garden and Governor's Island in New York.
• 1844
• May 1 – First test of new overhead wire, quickly strung 35
km through treetops and on posts, from Annapolis Junction
to Washington, D.C.
• 1845
• In Europe Cooke & Wheatstone patent a "Single Needle
Telegraph" which requires only one overhead wire and earth
return.
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Early history
• 1849
• First teleprinter circuit, New York to Philadelphia. Uses Royal
E. House teleprinter. The unit, which resembles a small
piano, was the first telegraph instrument to print actual
letters rather than code symbols.
• 1851
• Since the Morse code's space letters (C, O, R, Y and Z) and
long L cause problems when used with submarine cables,
the "International" or "Continental" Morse code is developed
at the International Telegraphic Conference in Berlin. It
combines portions of the Davy code (1838) and the Bain
code (1846).
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Early history
• 1852
• The first "Channel Cable" is laid between London and Paris.
• 1854
• Cyrus Field consults with Morse on an "Atlantic Cable."
• 1857
• Automatic sender, 70 w.p.m., is invented. Ink recorders and
perforators are re-introduced.
• 1858
• Trans-Atlantic cable is successfully laid by warships, but
breaks limit its usefulness. In only 24 days, communication
between the U.S. and Europe is lost.
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Early history
• 1859
• Western Union sets up the "92 Code" of numbered phrases.
"73" is included and means "Accept my compliments. "30" is
defined to mean "The end. No more."
• 1861
• Oct 21 – Beginning of coast to coast telegraph
communication in the United States. Western Union joins
wires from the east with wires from the west at Salt Lake
City, completing the first transcontinental telegraph.
• Oct 24 – Pony Express ends, ruining many investors.
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Early history
• 1866
• Permanent communication is established by wire from the
United States to Europe with the completion of the second
Atlantic telegraph cable.
• 1867
• U.S. buys Russian America (Alaska) from Russia. Purchase
was initially urged by Western Union president Hiram Sibley,
because W.U. needed that route, a 16,000 mile land wire
through western Canada, Russian America, across the Bering
Strait and through Siberia, to link America with Europe. This
scheme was abandoned in 1868 when the Trans-Atlantic
cable proved to be successful.
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Early history
• 1868
• July 28 – A truly successful Trans-Atlantic cable is finally laid
by the vessel "Great Eastern."
• 1870
• The Post Office takes over several failing telegraph
companies.
• 1875
• First "gallows type" telephone tested by Bell and Thomas
Watson in an attic room at 109 Court Street, Boston. It
transmitted recognizable speech sounds but not intelligible
speech.
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Phone pictures
gallows phone
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Early history
• 1876
• Bell files his patent application. First telephone patent (U.S.
No. 174,465) allowed and issued to Bell on March 7th.
• March 10th, Bell speaks the first complete sentence
transmitted by variable resistance transmitter ...
"Mr. Watson, come here. I want you!”
• The world's first long distance telephone call (one-way) was
received at Paris, Ontario by Bell from his father and uncle
at Brantford, Ontario over "borrowed" telegraph lines.
• Gardiner Greene Hubbard, one of Bell's financial backers and
sharer in Bell's patents, offers to sell the telephone invention
to Western Union Telegraph Company for $100,000.
Western Union refuses the offer.
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Early history
• 1876
• The world's first two way long distance telephone
conversation over an outdoor wire (borrowed telegraph line)
takes place between Cambridgeport and Boston,
Massachusetts between Bell and Watson.
• 1877
• First telephones rented for business use, on a private line
between Boston and Somerville, Massachusetts.
• First service rental paid for telephones (private use) in
Charlestown, Massachusetts ($20 for 2 Telephones for 1
Year).
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Early history
• 1878
• The first commercial telephone exchange is the world is
opened at New Haven, Connecticut with 21 subscribers on
January 28th
• The first telephone directory is published by the New Haven
District Telephone Co. (21 Listings) on February 21st
• 1879
• (February 17th) National Bell Telephone Company formed
• Telephone Numbers. The latter part of 1879 and the early
part of 1880 saw the first use of telephone numbers at
Lowell, Massachusetts.
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Early history
• 1879
• This story is that during an epidemic of measles, Dr. Moses
Greeley Parker feared that Lowell's four operators might
succumb and bring about a paralysis of telephone service.
He recommended the use of numbers for calling Lowell's
more than 200 subscribers so that substitute operators
might be more easily trained in the event of such an
emergency. The telephone management at Lowell feared
that the public would take the assignment of numbers as an
indignity but the telephone users saw the practical value of
the change immediately and it went into effect with no stir
whatsoever.
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Early history
• 1880
• The first telephone pay stations (not coin boxes but
attended telephones) are opened in certain districts of New
York
• 1881
• The first commercially successful long distance line, 45 miles
between Boston and Providence, Rhode Island, is opened for
business on January 12th
• 1884
• The New York to Boston line is opened for commercial
service on September 4th. (Rates: $2.00 daytime; $1.00 at
night)
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Early history
• 1886
• AT&T begins to offer private line service.
• 1887
• November 1st marks the first differentiation between day
and night long distance rates coming into effect, with night
rates in most, but not all, instances lower than day rates
• 1888
• The first pay telephone which required the deposit of a coin
to gain access to the telephone instrument was brought out
by William Gray. (The pay telephone was not the first coin
operated device.)
• Hertz, in Germany, discovers radio waves.
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Early history
• 1893
• Expiration of the first Bell patent makes it possible for
anyone who so desired to make telephone equipment and
sell telephone service
• 1894
• May 10 – Marconi sends a radio wave 3/4 mile. "Wireless" is
born.
• 1896
• June 2 – Marconi receives a British patent for his wireless
apparatus.
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Early history
• 1896
• Dial telephones - the first machine switching telephones with
finger wheels resembling those of today - were placed in
service at the city hall of Milwaukee, Wisconsin by the
Automatic Electric Company
• 1897
• July 7 – The Marconi Company successfully communicates
"ship to shore" over a distance of 12 miles.
• 1899
• Mar 3 – First rescue using wireless. The lightship East
Goodwin sent the word "help" while sinking.
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1900
• 1900
• There are now 855,900 telephones in the Bell Telephone
System
• December – Fessenden develops radio telephony.
• 1901
• Dec 12 – Marconi's letter "S" is heard across the Atlantic,
from St. Johns, Newfoundland to Poldhu, England – 1800
miles.
• 1903
• Jan 18 – Marconi has a two-way contact with England.
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1906
• 1906
• First International Wireless Conference discusses a universal
distress signal. The German SOE is suggested, but because
the letter E is so short, another S is used in its place.
• Lee de Forest, "Father of Radio," invents the first amplifying
vacuum tube, the Audion, by adding a third element (a grid)
to the Fleming Valve.
• First telephone directory featuring classified business
advertising on yellow pages issued in Detroit by the
Michigan State Telephone Company
• 1910
• "International Ship Act" requires a wireless set on all ships.
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1912
• 1912
• Apr 15 – The Titanic sinks, killing 1517. Its radio operator,
Jack Phillips, sends both CQD and the new SOS distress
signals in International Morse.
• Aug 9 – The Radio Act of 1912 officially adopts:
International Morse; the "Q" code (QRM, QRN, QSO etc.);
CQ (from English landline) as general call or "attention."
• 1917
• Bell system engineers demonstrate one way radio telephone
transmission from airplane to ground.
• By August, two way, air-ground communications is
maintained for the first time and communication between
two airplanes is also demonstrated
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1919
• 1919
• The Bell System announces plans for the introduction of
machine switching (dial telephones) in its exchanges
• 1920
• WWJ Detroit and KDKA Pittsburgh start regular radio
broadcasts.
• 1927
• A public demonstration of television by wire from
Washington, D.C. to Bell Telephone Laboratories in New
York City was made on April 7th. First color photographs
sent over wire from San Francisco to New York, for the New
York World.
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1934
• 1934
• The Communications Act of 1934 establishes the Federal
Communications Commission.
• 1936
• First coaxial cable installed between New York and
Philadelphia made available for multi-channel telephone
tests
• 1940
• Broad band carrier systems are introduced allowing for
simultaneous calls over a single pair of wires.
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1946
• 1946
• First commercial multi-channel high frequency microwave
radiotelephone system in Bell System is introduced in
southern California as well as between Nantucket (MA) and
the mainland. Mobile telephone service placed in commercial
use in St. Louis.
• 1947
• August 15th sees the introduction (on an experimental
basis) of telephone service from moving trains to any other
telephone. Mobile Telephone service opened along BostonWashington highway on September 26th.
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1954
• 1954
• Production of color telephones in eight shades is now
underway.
• July 2nd, the handsfree Speakerphone is in limited
production.
• 1961
• Bell System (January 16th) proposed a new service called
TELPAK which would create "electronic highways" between
specific points, over which many types of communications
could be transmitted.
• On January 18th, the FCC authorizes AT&T to operate
experimental radio stations for basic earth-satellite
communications study ("Project Telstar").
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1962
• 1962
• In March, the FCC approved "Bellboy" radio paging system
on a developmental basis for use at the Century 21 World's
Fair in Seattle.
• On July 10th, the world's first international communications
satellite - Telstar - rocketed into space. First transmission
came during Telstar's sixth orbit of the earth.
• On July 25th, the Bell System's "Skyphone" air-to-ground
public telephone service opened for commercial airline use
for the first time when TWA introduces the service on an
experimental basis.
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1964
• 1964
• On April 20, the first transcontinental Picturephone call is
made between Bell System exhibit at the World's Fair and
Disneyland, California.
• 1965
• The first commercial communications satellite, Early Bird, is
launched from Cape Kennedy on April 6th.
• April 23 sees the launch of the first Soviet communications
satellite, Molniya 1, which carries out transmissions of
television programs.
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1966
• 1966
• In April, Illinois Bell introduces a new residential telephone
set that provides for two lines for making calls and a hold
button for switching back and forth between calls.
• 1976
• AT&T installs its first digital switch.
• 1983
• ISDN trials begin in Japan.
• 1988
• The first transatlantic fiber optic cable is completed.
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1994
• 1994
• The FCC begins PCS auctions.
• 1995
• There are now 25 million cellular subscribers in the U.S.
Worldwide, 30 million users are now on the Internet.
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Links on history of telecom
•
•
•
•
http://www.ex.ac.uk/~jbcalver/morse.htm
http://www.ex.ac.uk/~jbcalver/electric.htm
http://phworld.tal-on.com/history/
http://www.twi.ch/~sna/SU/Block3/TelephoneHistory/hi
story1.htm
• http://www.sri.com/policy/stp/techin2/chp4.html
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