February 1876, about 11:30 am: Bell's lawyer brings to the same patent office Bell's patent application for the telephone. Bell's lawyer requests that it be registered immediately in the cash receipts blotter. The use of alphabetic exchange (area) codes was abandoned in the UK in 1966 in favour of all figure numbering. Nevertheless, about 60% of current area codes are still based on the original alphabetic STD codes. Gonsalves, Antone (19 September 2005). "RealNetworks Launches Streaming Music on Sprint Phones". Information Week . Retrieved 16 October 2012. April 1880: world's first wireless telephone call on Bell and Tainter's photophone (distant precursor to fiber-optic communications) from the Franklin School in Washington, D.C. to the window of Bell's laboratory, 213 meters away. [20] [21] Although mobile phones had long had the ability to access data networks such as the Internet, it was not until the widespread availability of good quality 3G coverage in the mid-2000s (decade) that specialized devices appeared to access the mobile web. The first such devices, known as " dongles", plugged directly into a computer through the USB port. Another new class of device appeared subsequently, the so-called " compact wireless router" such as the Novatel MiFi, which makes 3G Internet connectivity available to multiple computers simultaneously over Wi-Fi, rather than just to a single computer via a USB plug-in.

Additionally, calls to Northern Ireland from the Republic of Ireland can be made without an international access code, but instead replacing the British 028 prefix not with the conventional international prefix 00 44 28 but with a shorter Irish 048 area code which specifically covers Northern Ireland. For example, calling Belfast from London would be 028 9xxx xxxx while calling Belfast from Dublin would be 048 9xxx xxxx. However, it is also possible to make calls using the normal international 00 44 28 xxxx xxxx format. In both cases, calls are charged at a much lower rate than calls to Britain. Even without the need for expansion, consumers were already becoming confused as to what they would be charged for any particular call, with for example (0404) xxxxx being a call to Honiton in Devon and (0403) xxxxxx being a much more expensive call to a mobile phone. The situation in the early 1990s was as follows:John F. Mitchell, [36] [37] [38] Motorola's chief of portable communication products and Cooper's boss in 1973, played a key role in advancing the development of handheld mobile telephone equipment. Mitchell successfully pushed Motorola to develop wireless communication products that would be small enough to use anywhere and participated in the design of the cellular phone. [39] [40] Early generations [ edit ] Under the new "mixed" arrangement, although 0387 and 03873 have the same first four digits, they are treated as completely separate area codes. All calls from one area to the other require the area code to be dialled. Local numbers in Dumfries cannot begin with a "3". June 1877: Emile Berliner files telephone patent application that includes a carbon microphone transmitter. A cellular telephone switching plan was described by Fluhr and Nussbaum in 1973, [23] and a cellular telephone data signaling system was described in 1977 by Hachenburg et al. [24] Emergence of automated services [ edit ] The Western Electric Type 500 telephone becomes available in the United States after announcement in 1949.

Phil Porter, a Bell Labs engineer, proposed that cell towers be at the corners of the hexagons rather than the centers and have directional antennas pointing in 3 directions. In November 1922 the General Post Office decided to adopt the Strowger system after trialling several automatic exchange systems; initially for small and medium towns and cities in Britain. But for London this required development of the Director telephone system by the Automatic Telephone Manufacturing Company (ATM) to enable operation with a mixture of both automatic and manual local exchanges in the London area for several decades. A demonstration model of a "Director" exchange was shown by the developer ATM of Liverpool as part of the Post Office exhibits at the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley in 1924 and 1925. However, it was not until 1927 that the first "Director" telephone exchange was brought into service in Holborn, London and rolled out progressively across Greater London. Letters were assigned to each number from 2 to 0 on the telephone dial and a three-digit code, represented by letters, identified the local exchange. Telephone numbers were displayed preceded by the exchange name, with the first three letters highlighted to indicate the code, and number, such as WHItehall 1212. July 1873: Thomas Edison notes varying resistance in carbon grains due to pressure, and builds a rheostat based on the principle but abandons it because of its sensitivity to vibration.Giles, Arthur (editor). County Directory of Scotland (for 1901-1904): Twelfth Issue: Telephone (Scottish Post Office Directories), Edinburgh: R. Grant & Son, 1902, p. 28. August 1879: The Edison Telephone Company London Ltd, registered. Opened in London 6 September 1879.