Early 20th Century

Manual exchanges and consumer phones

The manual switchboard exchange persisted long into the twentieth century, as the uptake of telephone systems rapidly increased. By 1904 the US boasted over 3 million telephones, the number increasing rapidly despite the fact that competing telephone networks in the US did not interconnect.

In 1927 the Bell Model 102 was released. This style of telephone proved to have the greatest longevity of any phone – in some cases lasting for decades despite further developments. By the 1930s this design was improved to include the ringer and better electonics. Ultimately the technology of the phone remained essentially the same until the advent of touch-tone dialling in the 1960s began to replace the rotary dial.

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