Telephone call

A telephone call or telephone conversation (or telcon), also known as a phone call or voice call (or simply a call), is a connection over a telephone network between the called party and the calling party. Telephone calls started in the late 19th century. As technology has improved, a majority of telephone calls are made over a cellular network through mobile phones or over the internet with Voice over IP. Telephone calls are typically used for real-time conversation between two or more parties, especially when the parties cannot meet in person. The first telephone call was made on March 10, 1876, by Alexander Graham Bell. Bell demonstrated his ability to "talk with electricity" by transmitting a call to his assistant, Thomas Watson. The first words transmitted were "Mr Watson, come here. I want to see you." This event has been called Bell's "greatest success", as it demonstrated the first successful use of the telephone. Although it was his greatest success, he refused to have a telephone in his own home because it was something he invented by mistake and saw it as a distraction from his main studies. A telephone call may carry ordinary voice transmission using a telephone, data transmission when the calling party and called party are using modems, or facsimile transmission when they are using fax machines. The call may use land line, mobile phone, satellite phone or any combination thereof. When a telephone call has more than one called party it is referred to as a conference call. When two or more users of the network are sharing the same physical line, it is called a party line or Rural phone line. If the caller's wireline phone is connected directly to the calling party, when the caller takes their telephone off-hook, the calling party's phone will ring. This is called a hot line or ringdown. Otherwise, the calling party is usually given a tone to indicate they should begin dialing the desired number. In some (now very rare) cases, if the calling party cannot dial calls directly, they will be connected to an operator who places the call for them.