Notwithstanding the clamour in regard to telegraphic monopoly, it is a result of an inevitable law that business shall be mainly conducted under one great organization.
Western Union, 1871 (arguing against the introduction of competition in telecommunications)
We have this day, within two years, completed a line of communication two thousand miles long through the very centre of Australia, until a few years ago a terra incognita believed to be a desert.
Charles Todd (later Sir Charles), 1872 - first telegram using the Australian Overland Telegraph Line
The opportunity for fraud has been the chief obstacle.
Journal of the Telegraph, 1872
That undulatory had passed through the connecting wire to the distant receiver which, fortunately, was a mechanism that could transform the current back into an extremely faint echo of the sound of the vibrating spring that had generated it, but what was still more fortunate, the right man had that mechanism at his ear during that fleeting moment, and instantly recognized the transcendent importance of that faint sound thus electrically transmitted. The shout I heard and his excited rush into my room were the result of that recognition. The speaking telephone was born at that moment...All the experimenting that followed that discovery, up to the time the telephone was put into practical use, was largely a matter of working out the details.
Watson describing the moment Bell discovered the mechanism for transmitting speech using an electric current, June 2 1875
Electrical undulations, induced by the vibration of a body capable of inductive action, can be represented graphically, without error, by the same sinusoidal curve which expresses the vibration of the inducing body itself, and the effect of its vibrations upon the air; for, as above stated, the rate of oscillation in the electrical current corresponds to the rate of vibration of the inducing body---that is, to the pitch of the sound produced. The intensity of the current varies with the amplitude of the vibration--that is, with the loudness of the sound; and the polarity of the current corresponds to the direction of the vibrating body--that is, to the condensations and rarefactions of air produced by the vibration.
Alexander Graham Bell's patent application for the telephone, prepared 20 January 1876 and submitted on 14 February 1876, beating Elisha Gray by a few hours
Well-informed people know that it is impossible to transmit the human voice over wires.
New York newspaper, quoted by Scotland on Sunday, April 30, 2000
My God, it talks!
Don Pedro, Emperor of Brazil, on being shown the telephone by Bell at the Philadalphia Centennial Exposition, 1876
No skilled operator is required; direct conversation may be had by speech without the intervention of a third person. The communication is much more rapid, the average number of words being transmitted by Morse Sender being from fifteen to twenty per minute, by Telephone from one to two hundred. No expense is required either for its operation, maintenance, or repair. It needs no battery and has no complicated machinery. It is unsurpassed for economy and simplicity.
Bell Telephone Company advertisement, May 1877
This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.
Western Union memo, 1877
Friend David, I don't think we need a call bell as Hello! Can be heard 10 to 20 feet away. What do you think?
Letter from Thomas Edison to the president of the Central District and Printing Telegraph Co., Pittsburgh. August 15, 1877
It is conceivable that cables of telephonic wires could be laid under ground, or suspended over head, communicating by branch wires with private dwellings, counting houses, shops, manufactories etc., etc., uniting them through the main cable with a central office where wires could be connected as desired, establishing direct communication between any two places in the city. Such a plan as this, though impracticable at the present moment will, I firmly believe, be the outcome of the introduction of the telephone to the public.
Not only so, but I believe that, in future, wires will unite the head offices of the Telephone Company in different cities, and a man in one part of the country may communicate by word of mouth with another in a distant place.
Alexander Graham Bell, 25th March 1878 (two years after he had invented the telephone). Quoted in Telecommunications Heritage Journal, August 2004.
The great advantage [the telephone] possesses over every other form of electrical apparatus consists in the fact that it requires no skill to operate the instrument.
Alexander Graham Bell, 1878
When at last this little instrument appeared, consisting, as it does, of parts every one of which is familiar to us, and capable of being put together by an amateur, the disappointment arising from its humble appearance was only partially relieved on finding that it was really able to talk.
James Clerk Maxwell, 1878
The apparatus for speaking and hearing is the same at each end and includes a pair of wooden handles to be applied either to the ears or mouth and bells for calling attention, which are rung by a little handle which sends an electric current to them. It transmits conversations with the utmost clearness. In fact, the most important business communications could be safely trusted to the telephone.
Freemans Journal, reporting on the first telephone service in Ireland, 1878