My, how things have changed! Depending on your age, you may not even recall the days when we used rotary phones to make phone calls. The phone call has taken on many different forms over the past several decades. Amazingly, the telephone remains a staple in the world of communication. Make no mistake about it. We’d have some major issues without this age-old yet fascinating technology!
Let’s take a trip down memory lane to look at how making a phone call has changed over the decades.
The rotary phone.
We have to go back well over a century to visit the advent of the telephone. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell successfully received a patent for the telephone and secured the rights to the discovery. Almon Brown Strowger is credited as having the first patent for the rotary dial, back on November 29, 1892. With this phone, a finger wheel was used to create semi-spins based on the digits of a phone number. Not commonly used until the 1920s, the rotary phone was popular straight through to the 1980s.
You definitely needed a lot of patience to use a rotary phone! Because you had to turn the dial once for each digit, the process of dialing a number was a little cumbersome. Not to mention, if you misdialed a digit, you’d have to hang up the receiver and start the process all over again. Yes, those were the “good old days”!
The cordless phone.
Invented in 1956 but not commercially available until the 1980s, cordless phones allowed their users to multi-task while having conversations in ways they couldn’t before. Phone receivers could now completely detach from their bases! While the bases remained traditionally plugged into wall sockets, the receivers were now cordless. They also featured key pads which were starting to be used by the end of the 1960s.
Imagine! Walking anywhere in your home, no longer tethered to a phone just a few feet away! Of course, the wireless innovation did feature a bit of static and interference from time to time. But communicating over the phone had clearly become more convenient.
The mobile phone.
Okay, wait. You’re saying you don’t even have to be in your home to be on the phone anymore? The cell phone allowed for voice calls to be made on completely wireless devices. Martin Cooper is credited to have made the first ever cell phone call back on April 3, 1973. The heavy brick-like device didn’t become available to the buying public until 1983. Experiencing a huge growth in popularity in the 1990s, the cell phone would inevitably transition into the smartphone.
What a game-changer! Credited to IBM in 1992, the invention of the smartphone basically gave us all mini-computers to walk around with. Today, we use our phones for so much more than phone calls. Smartphones offer text messaging, emails, social media and video calls in the palms of our hands.
The Cloud Softphone.
With Melo Technology’s cloud-hosted Commercial Phone Services, you can take advantage of our Cloud Softphone! Compatible with both Androids and iPhones, this SIP-based softphone empowers you to make and receive digital calls over Wi-Fi or cellular data. As a result, it lets you preserve your personal cellular minutes. To learn all about it, please don’t hesitate to contact call us at 1-888-MELOTEL or fill out the form on our Contact page!
