The first telephone patent was granted to Alexander Graham Bell in 1876.

In 1878 the first telephone exchange was installed in New Haven, Connecticut. This system required an operator to connect the lines by using patch cables. The user, picking up the phone, would light a signal lamp on the operators panel. The operator would answer and "patch" the caller through to the other end. This system was cumbersome, but existed in some form for decades. During World War II, the military had priority use for phone systems. This slowed civilian traffic and a cross-country call could take as long as 2 hours to connect if manual connection was needed.Item description

The first portable cell phone was invented in 1973 by Motorola.