INTERTALK™

Did You Know?

• The word "telephone" is derived from the Greek words "tele" meaning "far off" and "phonos" meaning "sound."
• Among the literally hundreds of things invented by Thomas Edison, is the word "hello." Edison actually coined the word, derived from "holler" in 1889. Prior to that time the most common word used when answering the telephone was "yes."
• Herbert Hoover was the first U. S. President to have a telephone on his desk at the White House. All previous Presidents kept the phone in an adjoining room.
• Because he lacked the funds to develop and exploit the commercial potential of his new invention, Alexander Graham Bell tried to sell all rights to the telephone patent to the Western Union Telegraph Company for $100,000 in 1876. Western Union's president, William Orton turned him down saying, "This electrical toy has far too many shortcomings to ever be considered a practical means of communication."
• The year 1879 saw the first use of telephone numbers at Lowell, Massachusetts. During an epidemic of measles, Dr. Moses Greeley Parker feared that Lowell's four operators might succumb to the disease and bring about a paralysis of telephone service. He recommended the use of numbers rather than individual names for calling the more than 200 subscribers. This way, substitute operators could be more easily trained, in the event of such an emergency.
• 911 was first implemented in Haleyville, Alabama on February 16, 1968
• 240 million calls to 911 each year, with one-third of them wireless
• In Britain, over 43 million calls to the 999 emergency number are made annually, and over 50% of those are from wireless phones.
• 1,296 PSAPs are staffed by a single, on-duty dispatcher
• Washington (DC) receives 1.8 million 911 calls per year, Los Angeles 5 million, Baltimore (MD) 1.7 million.
• At some agencies – usually the very large, urban cities – up to 80% of 911 calls on on non-emergencies" to "are non-emergencies."
• James Clerk Maxwell showed mathematically that electromagnetic waves could propagate through free space
• Heinrich Rudolf Hertz and many others demonstrated, on a laboratory scale, radio wave propagation.
• In 1901, Marconi conducted the first successful transatlantic experimental radio communications
• In 1907, Marconi established the first commercial transatlantic radio communications service, between Clifden, Ireland and Glace Bay, Newfoundland.
• In 1909, Marconi and Karl Ferdinand Braun were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for "contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy".
• The most common type of receiver before vacuum tubes was the crystal set, although some early radios used some type of amplification through electric current or battery. Inventions of the triode amplifier, motor-generator, and detector enabled audio radio.
• When Alexander Graham Bell died on August 4, 1922, millions of phones went dead. In Bell's honor, all phones served by the Bell System in the USA and Canada went silent for one minute.
• In the Catholic church, St. Gabriel, an archangel, is the patron saint of telecommunications.
• "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.
• "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.
• "I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone" - Bjarne Stronstrup
• July 8, 1937 Britain implemented its 999 emergency telephone system serving police, fire and EMS after phone calls were delayed reporting 5-fatality fire on Wimpole Street. The first 999 call was placed at 4:20 a.m. when the wife of John Stanley Beard (33 Elsworthy Rd., Hampstead, London) dialed 999 to report a burglar outside her home. The burglary, 24 yeard-old Thomas Duffys, was apprehended.
• June 21, 1959 According to the Winnipeg (Man.) Police Department Web site, North America's first three-digit (999) emergency telephone system was introduced in that city at the urging of mayor Stephen Juba, and the operation's first supervisor was Helen Aizita Woollard, who went on to become an officer. There were initially eight Emergency Telephone Operators, of which Lucienne Galinas was one of the original hires. Women were hired because the system's budget was too small to pay men ($200 vs. $345 a month). Canada converted its three-digit emergency number to 911 in 1972.
• Jan. 12, 1968 AT&T announced their designation of 911 as a universal emergency number at a press conference in the Washington (DC) office of Indiana Rep. Ed Roush, who had championed for Congressional support for "one number." AT&T's plan affected only the Bell companies, and not any of the independent telephone companies. Up to this point, the number "911" wasn't mentioned in any literature, and apparently wasn't identified until the press conference. In fact, a Wall Street Journal article written the day before the press conference didn't mention "911" as the number that AT&T selected.
• Feb. 22, 1968 Nome (Alaska) reportedly implemented their 911 system, after legislative support of 911 by then-U.S. Senator Ernest Gruening, formerly Governor of the Territory of Alaska before its statehood in 1959.
• October 26, 1999 President Clinton signed Senate Bill 800, which designates 911 as the nationwide emergency telephone number.
• Radio waves have the longest wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum.the ionosphere, between 45 and 250 miles (70 to 400 km) above the earth. can reflect radio waves.
• radio waves can be diffracted by buildings, mountains and the curvature of the Earth. The amount of diffraction depends upon the wavelength of the radio wave and the physical size of the obstacle.
• the development of 9-1-1 as a national emergency number began, not in the United States, but in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, in 1959. The concept of a single answering point for emergency calls to public safety agencies caught on quickly. In the United States, the decision was made to utilize the Canadian number, for reasons of ease of memory (4-1-1 and 6-1-1 were already in use), and ease of dialing. In 1967, the number was established as the national emergency number for the United States