Imagine a world where the only way of personal communications is to write letters and then waiting long periods to get a reply. This was exactly the situation in the mid 1800s when Alexander Graham Bell was experimenting with an idea that ultimately led to the invention of the modern telephone device.

Bell’s inventive capabilities were visible from a very young age. Barely into his teens, he used nail brushes to put together a simple device capable of dehusking wheat.

Bell was born in the year 1847. His father and uncle were elocutionists while his mother and wife were deaf. This led him to research tirelessly on human hearing and speech.

During the mid 19^th century, the most efficient manner of sending messages without involving written letters was the telegraph. Bell hypothesised that human voice could be transmitted by telegraph over a wire, something that could be thought of as an “acoustic telegraph”. To develop his idea, Bell roped in the help of Thomas Watson (1854-1934). Bell’s research was financially supported by Thomas Sanders and Gardiner Greene Hubbard. By the year 1875, Bell and Watson worked together in Boston on the acoustic telegraph and the telephone. On 7 March 1876, the US Patent certificate number 174,465 was awarded to Alexander Graham Bell for ‘Improvement in Telegraphy’. However, Bell still did not have a working model of a telephone.

In his quest to develop a working telephone, Bell was not without competitors. On the very day on which Bell had filed for his patent, another inventor named Elisha Gray filed for a similar patent on the acoustic telegraph by using water to transmit sound. He too did not have a working model of a telephone.

However, three weeks after application, Bell who was finally granted the patent. A controversy existed regarding whose application had arrived earlier and whose idea was the most valid. Also there was an ongoing suspicion as to whether Bell had usurped Gray’s idea of using liquid as a transmitter. However, three days after being awarded the patent, Bell succeeded in getting his telephone to work. Bell called the working model “instrument”. The first words that Bell spoke on his “instrument” were ‘Mr Watson, come here – I want to see you.’ Thus was born the first true working telephone.

In 1877, the Bell Telephone Company (later AT&T) was founded. This company successfully fought off 587 challenges to Bell’s patent.

Abhishek Roy, Assistant Professor, DAITM