where it all began

The first wireless phone calls were made by Alexander Graham Bell in June 1880 here.

Washington DC plaque honouring Bell and the first wireless phone call

Bell considered his “photophone“, a light based phone system, more important than the now ‘traditional’ telephone he is usually remembered for. Readers of the fring blogs will recall Simon from fring’s South Africa blog discussing recent experiments with what may be the world’s fastest wi-fi connection. The technology used in that experiment is directly descended from Bell’s photophone. So, who knows, maybe someday history will concur with Bell’s own assessment. Of course, Bell’s photophone is really the grandfather of fibre optics, the technology that carries over 80% of the world’s data and voice traffic (including mobile phone traffic between cells and the rest of the network). So maybe the history books just haven’t caught up to Bell yet.

fring, of course, works great with the world’s most popular wi-fi technology. I think Bell would enjoy all this!