Fifty Years Telephone Development

Abstract

This lecture was delivered in commemoration of the Golden Anuiversary of the telephone and was intended to give the interesting story of the telephone invention and its development during the past fifty years. In the year after Bell's invention was announced, that is in 1877, the telephone was introduced to our country and in 1890 the telephone exchanges were opened for tie first time with the subscribers of 179 in Tokyo and 45 in Yokohama. Many pioneers and experts have devoted themselves to the development of telephone business with the result that there are at present over 490, 000 subscribers and 90, 000 miles of toll lines. Moreover, every feature recently developed has also been adopted; for a instance the 500 miles long distance telephone cable is now under construction, the seven automatic exchanges were opened last year in Tokyo and Yokohama. In the latter pact of the lecture, the writer described the history of the tetephone industries in Japan.