The telephone has evolved a lot with scientific breakthroughs. Today you can do almost everything you want wherever you are, such as checking on your emails while being on the bus, watching a video, etc. What are the origins of this little device some people confess they couldn't live without?
The birth of the telephone was very controversial. Although Graham Bell was the first to patent it and the one who remained famous for it, he is said to have stolen Antonio Meucci's invention. In 1871, the latter filed a patent caveat but he did not have enough money to renew it. He entrusted his work to some Edward B. Grant who lost it in Graham Bell's laboratory.
The first telephone was manual. This is how you would make a call: the caller picks up the receiver. A signal arrives at the central office. An operator answers and writes down the requested phone number. If the receiver depends on the same central office it will be a local connection; if not, the operator calls the operator of the local office of the receiver. When they are reached, the operators put the correspondents through to each other.
Does it ring a bell at all? Isn't it the ancestor of the phone conference? A phone conference is a telephone call in which there are more than two persons. But all parties do not have to participate in. They can just be listening to one speaker. This is a very convenient way to have business meetings as companies continue to extend internationally with a workforce across the globe.