Designed

As well as telephones being a communication device, they can also be used as a fashion statement. There are so many different, unique phones that can very well be used for decoration. Here is a site to go to to see many different phones with very unique designs.

Payphones of the World

Through researching telephony, I found an interesting site that shows the different variety of payphones in the world. This site offers pictures and descriptions of the different phones used in each country of the world. I never knew prior to researching that each country has different types of payphones. The pictures on the left and right just show an example of how different payphones are from the United States and Italy.

To look at more pictures and learn more check this site out:

http://www.2600.com/phones/

Photo Phone

The photo phone is a great new landline phone.
Click here to read more about it.

Telephony Online

To find some of the latest news dealing with telephony, a helpful site is: http://telephonyonline.com/news/

The site features news about ethernet, independent, IPTV, IMS, WMAX, VoIP, FTTx, Access, Broadband, Wireless, and software. It's a helpful site to connect with everything that is currently going on in the industry.

History

Here is a cool site about the history of the telephone

Changes Over the Years

With the advancements of telephony, the industry is having to make quite a few changes. Among these changes, it includes long distance companies are changing and do not resemble what they once were since their landline customer-base is shrinking, therefore they're beginning to offer what they call "bundled" packages in which customers can receive elaborate voicemail centers, call forwarding, automatic dialing, call blocking, to name a few.

With so many people using cellular devices and landline devices, telephone companies are beginning to run out of telephone numbers and instead of using what they usually do by changing the area code, they may have to incorporate always having to dial 10 digit numbers.

Lastly, the use of 900 numbers are no longer available and instead are now considered toll-free 1-800 numbers that allow you connect with psychics, jokes, dating opportunites, the list goes on, by making credit card payments instead of the old way of charging customers to their bills and having to deal with "charge backs" when customers refused to pay their charges.

cell phone language...

SInce texting has become more and more popular the past few years, more people are using a new "language" to talk....

Ditching the Land Line

People are using their cell phones so much that they are kicking their land lines to the curb.

This is a video from CBS news about how they are trying to make "unsightly" cell phone towers look better...

FREE internet?

Here is an example of what you do can do with your cell phone. It is pretty crazy!

New Cell Phones

As already discussed in the blog briefly, there are many new cell phones being invented. With in the last week many new models were released. Among them, Nokia released a new pocket-size cellphone called the Nokia N810 that allows for the consumer to connect to Wi-Fi hotspots and Bluetooth movile devices to make internet calls, check Google mail or Facebook accounts, use the internet to search and along with having a touch screen the new phone also has a slide-out keyboard.

A second phone, the Samsung Juke Music Phone has been announced will be available soon. This phone allows for the playing of MP3, WMA, AAC, and AAC+ files. It also comes in a variety of colors and with it's layout it is easily accessible.

A third phone was announced for Sprint, which is the HTC Touch, that allows a full touch screen Windows Mobile 6 device. With this new cell phone, you can dial a person by touching their picture, outlook mobile is accessible, surfing the internet, and sending files over the web, on the home screen, the current weather conditions and forecasts are displayed along with text messaging, email, and calendar.

For more information on the latest cell phones being developed visit this link: http://www.mobiledia.com/

AT&T

These commercials put out by AT&T are promoting the fact that they have "more bars in more places." This means they have their service on more towers which means your signal strength will be greater than if you were to go with another phone service...well, maybe so, but wither way, they're good commercials!

Future of Telecommunications

Throughout the years the telephone has changed drastically. It seems as if almost every year a new type of phone is developed and is incorporating more of the consumer's needs. After discussing with my family, since our family business is telephone companies, my uncle enlightened me with some interesting news as to where telephones are headed and different things that are already being incorporated into the telephony industry. Among the new advancements, are unlimited long distance for only one flat fee, there is a convergence of iCentrex with the Internet Protocal Service which in the future will allow people to access their telephone lines via an internet connection and can be used for accessing voicemails, faxes, view call records and make calls. Here's a link that describes the use of the iCentrex system a little more indepth: http://www.telserco.com/telephone/icentrex.cfm
Another fascinating advancement in the future is to have 3-Dimensional communications, in which people can talk to one another in a 3D like way, and lastly, there will be a convergence between wireless, wireline, and broadband which will allow or someone to dial your telephone number and it will ring both on your cell phone and home phone at once allowing an automatic transfer between landline and wireless networks.

AT&T

AT&T gained a monolopy of the phone industry from congress in the Communicatons Act of 1934. 31% of U.S. homes had a phone and all of these phones were through AT&T. This monopoly lasted until 1982. AT&T spun-off it's services and it's assets went to Bell.

Call phones

Cell phones work like this:



If a phone in cell A calls a phone in cell B, the call doesn’t pass directly between the phones, but from the first phone to mast A, then to mast B, and then to the second phone.

Cellphones that are moving between cells (when people are walking along or driving) are regularly sending signals to and from nearby masts so that, at any given time, the cellphone network always knows which mast is closest to which phone. If a car passenger is making a call and the car drives between cells C, D, and E, the phone call is automatically "handed off" (passed from cell to cell) so the call is not interrupted.

Landlines

Landlines work like this:



1.) The sound energy in your voice makes the air vibrate. Vibrating air carries the sound energy into the phone.

2.) The diaphragm in the mouthpiece microphone converts sound energy into electrical energy.

3.) The electrical energy travels from the phone, via exchanges, to your friend's phone.

4.).) A diaphragm in the earpiece loudspeaker of your friend's phone converts the incoming electrical energy back to sound energy.

5.) The sound energy travels out from the earpiece into your friend's ear.

radio + telephone = cell phones

Looking at how cell phones actually work, it described them as combining the technologies of radios and telephones. It also said that cell phones are actually more similar to radios than telephones.

Blackberry

New features were added to the cell phone in 1999. The new features included being able to access the internet (email, web browsing, etc.). This was a new phenomenon that is becoming very popular.
More information on the blackberry can be found here.

Landlines to Cellphones

The introduction of cellphones was a very big step from landlines. Here is a site on how we went from landlines to cellphones

Cell Phone Etiquette

I think cell phone etiquette is really important for people to be aware of and practice. In so many places, talking on your phone too loudly or at inappropriate times is just plain rude and people take a lot of offense to it. One thing I found on Wikipedia is that many places are installing signal jamming equipment to prevent cell phone use (illegal in the US) or some newer buildings, such as auditoriums, have installed wire mesh in the walls which prevents signal penetration that does not violate signal jamming law. Also, places such as doctor's offices, movie theaters and libraries prohibit the use of cell phones in their buildings.

howstuffworks.com

I found SO much information on www.howstuffworks.com about the technical details that are involved with cell phones/telephony. It talks a lot about the frequencies, channels, and signals that make cell phones work...very interesting stuff! http://http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/cell-phone.htm

History - Patent Claims

When we think of the history of the telephone and who invented it, we automatically think of Alexander Graham Bell but history isn't as straight forward as one would think. It is filled with claims and counterclaims on who was the first to invent this new form of communication. These individuals that became involved in a very large amount of lawsuits on who the patent belonged to are: Antonio Meucci, Johann Philipp Reis, Alexander Graham Bell, Elisha Gray. Graham eventually was grandted the patent for "Transmitters and Receivers for Electric Telegraphs", in 1875. "This uses multiple vibrating steel reeds in make-break circuits." If you want to learn more about the history go to, history