Report
The Ancient Greeks dreamt of a device that would enable people to talk over long distances without the need for an interlocutor. They called such a device a ‘telephone’. The idea of direct communication over electric wire was then introduced with the arrival of Morse’s Telegraph in 1838. However, even when Bell finally invented the Electric Speaking Telephone in 1876, it still took some time to find a common use for the device. This interesting general article presents the history of society’s adoption of the fixed-line telephone, and the corresponding adoption of the mobile telephone. It highlights the differences and similarities of these histories, and poses some interesting questions for today’s mobile industry.