Since the beginning of the study of electricity non conductive materials like glass, porcelain, paper and mica have been used as insulators. These materials some decades later were also well-suited for further use as the dielectric for the first capacitors. Paper capacitors made by sandwiching a strip of impregnated paper between strips of metal, and rolling the result into a cylinder were commonly used in the late 19century; their manufacture started in 1876, and they were used from the early 20th century as decoupling capacitors in telecommunications (telephony).