Timeline of the telephone (1876-1878)

11 February 1876 Elisha Gray invents liquid transmitter for use with a telephone, but does not build one.
14 February 1876 (about 9:30 am) Gray or his lawyer brings to the Patent Office Gray's caveat for the telephone. (A caveat was like a patent application without claims to notify the patent office of an invention in process.)
14 February 1876 (about 11:30am) Bell's lawyer brings to the Patent Office Bell's patent application for the telephone. Bell's lawyer requested that it be registered immediately in the cash receipts blotter.
Two hours later Elisha Gray's caveat was registered in the cash blotter. Although his caveat was not a full application, Gray could have converted it into a patent application, but did not do so because of advice from his lawyer and involvement with acoustic telegraphy. The result was that the patent was awarded to Bell. [1]
7 March 1876 Bell's US patent 174,465 for the telephone is granted.
10 March 1876 Bell transmits speech "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you." using a liquid transmitter described in Gray's caveat and an electromagnetic receiver described in Gray's July 1875 US patent 166,095.
16 May 1876 Thomas Edison files first patent application for acoustic telegraphy for which US patent 182,996 was granted October 10, 1876.
10 August 1876 Alexander Bell makes worlds first long distance telephone call between Brantford and Paris, Ontario Canada.
October 1876 Thomas Edison tests his first carbon microphone.
20 January 1877 Edison "first succeeded in transmitting over wires many articulated sentences" using carbon granules as a pressure sensitive variable resistance under the pressure of a diaphragm (Josephson, p143).
30 January 1877 Bell's US patent 186,787 is granted for an electro-magnetic telephone using permanent magnets, iron diaphragms, and a call bell.
4 March 1877 Emile Berliner invents a microphone based on "loose contact" between two metal electrodes, an improvement on the Reis telephone, and in April 1877 files a caveat of an invention in process.
27 April 1877 Thomas Edison files telephone patent application. The US patents (474,230, 474,231 and 474,231) were awarded to Edison in 1892 over the competing claims of Alexander Graham Bell, Emile Berliner, Elisha Gray, A E Dolbear, J W McDonagh, G B Richmond, W L W Voeker, J H Irwin and Francis Blake Jr.[2]
Edison's carbon granules transmitter and Bell's electromagnetic receiver were used, with improvements, by the Bell system for many decades thereafter (Josephson, p 146).

4 June 1877 Emile Berliner files telephone patent application that includes a carbon microphone transmitter.
December 1, 1877 Western Union enters the telephone business using Thomas Edison's superior carbon microphone transmitter.
January 1878 First North American telephone exchange opened in New Haven, Connecticut.
4 February 1878 Thomas Edison demonstrates telephone between Menlo Park, New York and Philadelphia, a distance of 210 km.
14 June 1878 The Telephone Company Ltd (Bell's Patents) registered, London. Opened in London 21 August 1879 - Europe's first telephone exchange.
September 12, 1878 The Bell Telephone Co. sues Western Union for infringing Bell's patents.

Timeline of the telephone (1879-1919)

Early months of 1879 The Bell Telephone Co. is near bankruptcy and desperate to get a transmitter to equal Edison's carbon transmitter.
1879 Bell merges with the New England Telephone Company to form the National Bell Telephone Company.
1879 Francis Blake invents a carbon transmitter similar to Edison's that saves the Bell company from extinction.
2 August 1879 The Edison Telephone Company of London Ltd, registered. Opened in London 6 September 1879.
10 September 1879 Connolly and McTighe patent a "dial" telephone exchange (limited in the number of lines to the number of positions on the dial.).
1880 National Bell merges with others to form the American Bell Telephone Company.
1882 A telephone company --an American Bell affiliate-- is set up in Mexico City.
1885 American Telephone and Telegraph Company AT&T is formed.
1886 Gilliland's Automatic circuit changer is put into service between Worcester and Leicester allowing for the first Operator dialing allowing one operator to run two exchanges.
13 January 1887 the Government of the United States moves to annul the patent issued to Alexander Graham Bell on the grounds of fraud and misrepresentation. Bell remanded for trial.
1889 AT&T becomes the overall holding company for all the Bell companies.
November 2, 1889 A. G. Smith patents a telegraph switch which provides for trunks between groups of selectors allowing for the first time, fewer trunks than there are lines, and automatic selection of an idle trunk.
10 March 1891 Almon Strowger patents the Strowger switch the first Automatic telephone exchange.
30 October 1891 The Strowger Automatic Telephone Exchange company is formed.
3 May 1892 Thomas Edison awarded patents for the carbon microphone against applications lodged in 1877.
3 November 1892 The first Strowger switch goes into operation in LaPorte, Indiana with 75 subscribers and capacity for 99.
27 February 1901 United States Court of Appeal declares void Emile Berliner's patent of the Bell telephone system
1915 Vacuum tubes used in coast-to-coast telephone circuits.
25 January 1915 First transcontinental telephone call, with Thomas Watson at 333 Grant Avenue in San Francisco receiving the call from Alexander Graham Bell at 15 Day Street in New York City.[1]
1919 AT&T installs the first dial telephones in the Bell System, in Norfolk, Virginia. The last manual telephones in the system were not converted to dial until 1978 when the last of the first bell phones were no longer made.

South American

Argentina
Main article: Argentine telephone numbering plan

Country Code: 54
International Call Prefix: 00


Brazil
Main article: Brazilian telephone numbering plan
Country Code: 55
International Call Prefix: 00 xx

In Brazil, long distance and international dialing requires the use of carrier selection codes, after the trunk code or international access code. The places where these codes are inserted are shown here by "xx" Some of these codes are:

15 for Telefónica
21 for Embratel
23 for Intelig
31 for Telemar
Area codes are distributed geographically (See List of Brazilian area codes for a list). National dialing is prefixed with 0 (the trunk code) followed by the carrier code (see above) then the area code and the number. For example, to call Rio de Janeiro from another city in Brazil, one would dial the trunk code '0', a two-digit code, the area code '21' and the subscriber's number. Consequently, a Rio de Janeiro number would be displayed in Brazil as

0xx21 nnnn nnnn.
A few areas use nnn-nnnn in lieu of nnnn nnnn, such as Natal (the area code for that state is '84', in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, in northeastern Brazil. However, this practice will be phased out in 2006.

Mobile phone numbers are within the normal area codes but prefixed with the digit '7', '8' or '9'. They generally have eight digits (including the 7/8/9). Exceptions exist in Brasilia.


Colombia
Main article: Colombian telephone numbering plan
Country Code: 57
International Call Prefix: 00


Ecuador
Country Code: 593

Mobile: 9
Azuay: 7
Bolivar: 3
Cañar: 7
Carchi: 6
Chimborazo: 3
Cotopaxi: 3
El Oro: 7
Esmeraldas: 6
Galapagos: 5
Guayas: 6
Imbabura: 6
Loja: 7
Los Rios: 5
Manabi: 5
Morona Santiago: 7
Napo: 6
Orellana: 6
Pastaza: 3
Pichincha: 2
Sucumbios: 6
Tungurahua: 3
Zabora Chinchipe: 7
Ambulance Service: 101
Fire Dept: 102
Emergency: 101
International access code: 00

Peru
Country Code: 51

Most area codes in Peru changed on 1 March 2003, providing an area code for each region (national subdivision).

Peruvian area codes are 2 digits long except for Lima (area code 1).

Also on that date, '9' was prepended to existing mobile numbers. Mobile subscriber numbers are now 8 digits in Lima (+51 1 9xxx xxxx) and 7 digits elsewhere (+51 xx 9xx xxxx).

103 is the telephone information number
105 is the Police Emergency Number
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_numbering_in_the_Americas"

Central American

[edit] Mexico
Country Code: 52

In 1999 Mexico introduced the following new prefixes for use when making long distance calls from telephones in Mexico:

00 - international direct dialing (00 + country code + nat'l number)
including USA and Canada.
01 - domestic direct dialing (01 + area code + number)
02 - domestic operator dialing (02 + area code + number)
09 - international operator dialing (09 + country code + number)
including USA and Canada.
These codes are not used when calling Mexico from other contries. Such calls should be dialed using whatever international call prefix (such as +, 00, or 011) is required when making international calls from the country where the call originates.)

Mexican area codes are 3 digits long, except for Mexico City (55), Monterrey (81), Guadalajara (33) and their respective outlying areas.

Likewise, local numbers are 7 digits long, while Mexico City, Monterrey, and Guadalajara use 8 digit numbers. 8 digit numbers are commonly written two ways:

xxxx xxxx
xx xx xx xx
When dialed within its local area, calling-party-pays mobile phone numbers have a designated prefix: 044 - mobile phone (044 + area code + number) For example, when calling within area code 33, a Guadalajara mobile phone would be dialed as: 044 33 xxxx xxxx This prefix is dropped when the number is dialed from another city in Mexico and the domestic prefix 01 is used since calling-party-pays calls can only be made when the mobile subscriber is being called from the same local area. This regulation changed since November 8, 2006, enabling calling-party-pays nationwide (prefix 045). However, some telco operators have refused the new scheme. Outside the country, mobiles are dialed in the same way as regular lines: +52 33 xxxx xxxx

It is common to see businesses with multiple lines on the same telephone exchange list their alternate lines without repeating the common numbers. For example, "(55) xxxx xx10, 19, 22 y 24" would signify a series of lines in Mexico City:

(55) xxxx xx10
(55) xxxx xx19
(55) xxxx xx22
(55) xxxx xx24

North American Numbering Plan

Country Code: 1
International Call Prefix: 011

In the United States (including its territories), Canada, Bermuda, and 16 Caribbean nations, area codes are regulated by the North American Numbering Plan. Currently, all area codes (officially called numbering plan areas) in the NANP must have 3 digits. Despite being one numbering plan, the cost of calling numbers in the NANP (both from inside and from outside) can vary wildly depending on which country of the NANP the code is in. As a result, great care is needed on the part of a caller to avoid unexpectedly large bills.

Not all area codes correspond to a geographical area. Codes 8xx (excluding 811 and 899) with the last two digits matching, such as 800, 888, 877, 866, etc., are reserved for toll-free calls. Code 900 is reserved for premium-rate calls (also known as dial-it services, although such services also exist in some places on a local basis using a particular three-digit prefix following the area code, often "976" or "540"). Area code 710 is reserved for the United States Government. Area code 600 is reserved for national Canadian services.

Mobile phones are allocated numbers within regular geographic area codes corresponding to or close to the subscriber's home or work location, instead of within a distinctive subset of area codes (e.g. 07xxx in the UK) and all the extra costs of mobile telephony must be borne by the mobiles owner (unlike in many countries where calling mobiles costs significantly more than calling landlines). Local number portability (LNP) applies across landline and mobile services. In some regions, customer can port a landline number to mobile service and vice-versa.

Dialing plans vary from place to place depending on whether an area has overlays (multiple area codes serving the same area) and whether the state requires toll alerting (a leading 1+ for toll calls.) The NANPA web site includes dialing plan information in their information on individual area codes.

In areas without overlays and without toll alerting, including much of California, Illinois, New York (excluding New York City, see below), and New Jersey, calls within an area code are dialed as seven digits (7D) and calls outside the area code as 1 followed by 10 digits (1+10D). Most areas allow permissive dialing of 1+10D even for calls that could be dialed as 7D. The number of digits dialed is unrelated to whether a call is local or toll.

In areas without overlays and with toll alerting, including most rural states, local calls within the same area code are dialed as 7D, toll calls are dialed as 1+10D. In some places, local calls to other area codes are 1+10D, in others they can be dialed as 10D without the leading 1.

In areas with overlays, local calls are all dialed as 10D. (In New York City, the preferred form is 1+10D but 10D also works.) In areas without toll alerting, all calls to numbers within the caller's area code and overlay codes serving the same area can be dialed as either 10D or 1+10D, while calls to other area codes must be 1+10D. In areas with toll alerting, all toll calls must be dialed as 1+10D.

Most areas permit local calls to be dialed as 1+10D except for Texas which requires that callers know which numbers are local and which are toll, dialing 10D for all local calls and 1+10D for all toll calls. The current profusion of dialing plans is quite confusing, and it appears likely that all areas will converge on 1+10D even in places where other forms are permitted.

Mobile phone users in North America are not generally required to dial 1, but do need to dial 10D for all calls within the North America numbering plan.

The Bell Telephone Hour

The Bell Telephone Hour was a musical-themed television series which aired on NBC from 1959 to 1968. It was telecast in color. Adapted from the radio series of the same name which ran on the NBC radio network from 1940 to 1958, The Bell Telephone Hour showcased the best in classical and Broadway music each week.

For much of the early part of its run, the show didn't have a weekly time slot; it usually had to share with another program, meaning it aired every other week.

By the mid-1960s, however, it had received a weekly time slot, usually on Friday or Saturday evenings. It became noted for its Christmas specials frequently featuring opera stars as well as stars of musical theater and ballet. In the fall of 1965, the show was switched to an earlier time slot - Sundays at 6:30 P.M. In 1967, the format changed from a videotaped and mostly musical presentation to filmed documentaries about classical musicians made on location. One of the most notable documentary programs combined a tour of the Prado, in Spain, with performances by such noted Spanish musicians as Andrés Segovia, Alicia de Larrocha, and Victoria de los Angeles. Another was a profile of Cleveland Orchestra conductor George Szell. This one was not a biography of Szell, but a documentary showing how he worked with the orchestra.

One of the last, and most notable episodes done in the videotape format, was "First Ladies of Opera", featuring Joan Sutherland, Leontyne Price, Renata Tebaldi and Birgit Nilsson, all on one program.

The name of the program was derived from its sponsor, Bell Telephone. Throughout its run, on both radio and television, the studio orchestra on the program was conducted by Donald Voorhees.