My interview with William Caughlin, head of the AT&T Archives and History Center, began in a strange way. Our Microsoft Teams video call failed, so we ended up talking about a “regular” call.
Maybe “normal” isn’t entirely true, given the infrastructure. But it was appropriate for the topic of our discussion: the very first telephone, which happened 150 years ago.
On March 10, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell made a famous exclamation to his assistant: “Mr. Watson, come here, I want you.” That sentence crossed one copper wire into the next room. Although the technology that enabled the telephone has changed dramatically over the past century and a half, the experience has remained fundamentally the same. Two people in two different places were talking — and wanting to communicate — in real time.
Caughlin told me that Bell had been on the job for a year at that point. But although he could transmit speech sounds over copper wire in 1875, it was not clear. “Watson could hear sounds, sounds, but he didn’t really know what Bell was saying. But Bell knew he was on the right track at that point,” Caughlin said.
Those studies culminated on March 10, when the sounds became apparent.
Read more: AT&T Says It’s Throwing $250 Billion into New Infrastructure Development
Artifacts of the future
To celebrate the anniversary of that first shipment, AT&T created a pop-up exhibit at its headquarters in Dallas, open to the public until Thursday, March 12.
Some of the notable artefacts on display from this day 150 years ago include the copper wire on which the message was sent, which in 1914 was wound into an open spool and placed behind glass. There is also Thomas Watson’s notebook, where he recorded those historic first words.
“It’s one of the greatest treasures in our collection,” Caughlin said.
The original copper wire through which Bell transmitted the first telephone in 1876 is on display in the pop-up exhibition.
The first transcontinental telephone call, with Bell at the center, took place in New York City in 1915. In front of the person to the right of the Bell is the original copper wire used in the first telephone in 1876.
From left, AT&T Chief Engineer John J. Carty; New York City Board of Aldermen President George McAneny; AT&T Vice President UN Bethell; Alexander Graham Bell; New York City Mayor John Purroy Mitchell; The president of the Nebraska Telephone Co. Casper E. Yost; and New York City Administrator William A. Prendergast.
In his journal, Thomas Watson recorded what was said during the first call from Bell.
And with its red ribbon and official seal, the March 7, 1876, patent for “Improvement in Telegraphy,” is said to be the most important patent ever granted.
In a pop-up exhibit at AT&T headquarters, the original patent for Bell’s telephone is framed, along with the copper wire used to transmit the first call and Watson’s journal chronicling the experiment.
The telephone occupied Bell’s attention for only a few years. Despite launching the industry, Bell was still tinkering elsewhere, according to Caughlin.
“He was a lifelong learner, scientist, explorer, and although he left the telephone business in 1878, he continued to explore.”
Bell considers “the telephone” to be the greatest thing he has invented, Caughlin said. In 1880, Bell transmitted the human voice over a beam of light. It was the forerunner of today’s fiber-optic cables, which essentially did the same thing: send pulses of light through glass fibers over thousands of kilometers. Bell relayed his voice using mirrors and a parabola receiver 1,300 feet away on another building. It needed sunlight, but the voice was very clear.
Enlarge Image
Bell patented the “telephone,” a system for transmitting voice by light rays using mirrors and a large parabola.
Also in the vault is the original transistor invented by AT&T physicists John Bardeen and Walter Brattain, which Caughlin says is “the second greatest invention ever to come out of AT&T.”
The technology that underpins so many things on my desk and whatever device you’re reading this story on. “In your smartphone, you have something like 20 billion transistors,” Caughlin said.
Its 1950 patent is also included in the collection.
The first transistor is part of the AT&T archives.
Links then and now
In that Boston lab in 1876, the network consisted of a copper wire running from Bell’s transmitter to the receiver Watson was using. Now, AT&T says it’s delivering an exabyte (1 billion gigabytes, or storage equivalent to 4 million iPhone 17E smartphones) of data across its network every day.
Voice calls represent a small portion of that traffic. The technology that connects our phones — 5G networks, fiber backbones, satellite calling — continues to change as the number of calls remains a small part of how we communicate. About three times as many texts as voice calls will go through AT&T’s network by 2025.
I, for one, will always prefer a text chat to a phone call, especially for fulfillment.
But the calls have not disappeared. If anything, they have become a nuisance, given to them lots of scam calls and now impersonal AI-based customer service programs which interfere with human communication. Today’s carriers and phone makers need to be aggressive filtering toolsalthough with varying degrees of success.
However if I want to connect and focus my full attention on someone, a voice or video call is the way to do it. And unlike days gone by, I can make phone calls anywhere without worrying about long distance charges. Heck, I don’t even need to memorize phone numbers anymore — I just tap one of my favorite contacts or ask the automated voice assistant to call me.
There is no doubt that Bell knew the value of hearing the human voice, live, over the phone. A century and a half later, thanks to incredible advances in telephone technology, that connection is still vital.
