Telephony synonyms

Fleming, The Principles of Electric Wave Telegraphy and Telephony, p. 416, 2nd ed.

An important modification of this method enables not only audible signals but articulated words to be transmitted, and gives thus a system of wireless telephony.

Telephony is the art of reproducing sounds at a distance from their source, and a telephone is the instrument employed in sending or receiving such sounds.

The term " telephony " was first used by Philipp Reis of Friedrichsdorf, in a lecture delivered before the Physical Society of Frankfort in 1861.1 But, although this lecture and Reis's subsequent work received considerable notice, little progress was made until the subject was taken up between 1874 and 1876 by Alexander Graham Bell, a native of Edinburgh, then resident in Boston, Mass., U.S.A. Bell, like Reis, employed electricity for the reproduction of sounds; but he attacked the problem in a totally different manner.

The necessary condition for a successful system of telephony is the ability to reproduce these characteristics.