The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1939-09-29
MODERN TELEPHONY IS
RESULT OF ENDLESS RE-
SEARCH AND EXPERIMENT
Factors OF Distance, Bad Trans
mission, And Cost Had To
Be Overcome

ences to transmission" as applied to
the telephone appeared in a four-page
folder issued in May, 1S77-the first
telephone advertisement. This was q
little more than year after the tele-
phone was invented. The first para
graph of this historic document IL
printed below. It shows that then, as
now, three factors were involved in the
electrical transmission of speech.
"The proprietors of the Tele-
phone, the invention of Alexander
Graham Bell, for which patents
have been issued by the United
States and Great Britain, are now
prepared to furnish Telephones
for the transmission of articulate
speech through instruments not
more than twenty miles apart.
Conversation can be easily carried
on after slight practice and with
the occasional repetition Of
word or sentence. On first listen
ing to the Telephone, though the
sound il perfectly audible, the
articulation seems to be indis-
tinct; but after a few trials the
ear becomes accustomed to the
peculiar sound and finds little
difficulty in understanding the
words"
The first of these factors was dis
lance. It will be noted that telephones
were available for transmission
Through instruments not more than
twenty miles apart" The first tele-
phones were leased in pairs and pro-
vided no inter-communicating service.
The lines which connected these pairs
were rarely more than few miles in
length; often they merely crossed the
street.
The second factor was the clearness
or quality Of transmission. Through
the primitive telephones Of 1877, the
articulation was admittedly "indis-
tinct" and was received as strange
sound" The first step in remedying
such transmission defects was the
improvement of the telephone instru-
ment itself; the second was the devel-
opment of better circuits.
The third factor was the cost of pro-
viding transmission facilities. One of
the most important Of the many
achievements of telephone research and
engineering has been the reduction Of
the cost of service by finding ways Of
using the same physical conductors
for more than one conversation at
the same time.
By 1915. the loading coils, the
vacuum tube repeater and other trans
mission developments had SO far
extended the distance over which the
voice could travel by wire that the
first transcontinental telephone line
was built and nationwide service
became an accomplished fact. Four
transcontinental speech highways now
link the Atlantic and the Pacific.
The development of radio telephony,
in association with transmission by
wire, has given the telephone a world
wide reach. Today, every Bell-owned
or Bell-connecting telephone may be
connected with more than $4,000, 900
American or foreign telephones, or
about SO per cent of the worlds total.
The modern Bell System telephone
instrument is the direct descendant of
more than one hundred types of trans
mitter and more than seventy types Of
receiver. Such developments Of
apparatus, together with the improve
ment Of telephone circuits, have not
only extended the distances over which
the voice may travel, but have
increased the distinctness with which
it is received. So faithful is the
reproduction of the sound which issues
from the telephone receiver Of today
that speaker and listener may con-
verse practically as If face to face.