150 Years After the First Phone Call, We’re Still Looking for 1-on-1 Connections
My interview with William Caughlin, director of the AT&T Archives and History Center, began with an ironic twist. Our Microsoft Teams video call failed, so we ended up talking on the “normal” phone.
Maybe “regular” isn’t quite accurate, given the infrastructure. But it fit well with the topic of our conversation: the very first phone call, which took place exactly 150 years ago.
On March 10, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell made a famous exclamation to his assistant: “Mr. Watson, come here, I want you.” This sentence passed through a single copper wire to the next room. Even though the technology that enables this call has changed dramatically over the last century and a half, the experience is fundamentally the same. Two people in two different locations were having a conversation – and looking for a connection – in real time.
Caughlin told me that Bell had been working on experiments for a year. But even though he was able to transmit speech sounds over copper wire in 1875, these were inarticulate. “Watson could hear noises, sounds, but he couldn’t really understand what Bell was saying. But Bell knew he was on the right track at that point,” Caughlin said.
These experiences culminated on March 10, when the sounds became clear.
Learn more: AT&T says it is investing $250 billion in new infrastructure improvements
Artifacts of the future
To celebrate the anniversary of this first transmission, AT&T created a pop-up exhibit at its Dallas headquarters, open to the public until Thursday, March 12.
Notable artifacts on display 150 years ago include the copper wire on which the message was sent, which in 1914 was wrapped in a loose coil and placed behind glass. There is also Thomas Watson’s notebook, in which he recorded these historic first words.
“It’s one of the greatest treasures in our collection,” Caughlin said.
The original copper wire on which Bell transmitted the first telephone call in 1876 is featured in a pop-up exhibit.
The first transcontinental call, with Bell at the center, took place in New York in 1915. In front of the person to Bell’s right is the original copper wire used in the first telephone call in 1876.
From left, AT&T Chief Engineer John J. Carty; George McAneny, president of the New York City Board of Aldermen; Vice President of AT&T A Bethell; Alexander Graham Bell; New York Mayor John Purroy Mitchel; President of Nebraska Telephone Co., Casper E. Yost; and New York City Comptroller William A. Prendergast.
In his diary, Thomas Watson recorded what was said during Bell’s first telephone call.
And with its red ribbon and official seal, the original March 7, 1876 patent for “Improvement in Telegraphy” is considered the most valuable patent ever granted.
In a pop-up exhibit at AT&T headquarters, the original patent for Bell’s telephone is on display, along with the copper wire used to transmit the first telephone call and Watson’s journal chronicling the experiments.
The telephone only held Bell’s attention for a few years. Even though Bell started an industry, Bell was still tinkering elsewhere, according to Caughlin.
“He was a lifelong learner, a scientist, a researcher, and even though he left the telephone business in 1878, he continued to experiment.”
Bell considered the “photophone” his greatest invention, Caughlin said. In 1880, Bell transmitted a human voice on a beam of light. It was a precursor to today’s fiber optic cables, which do essentially the same thing: send pulses of light through glass fibers thousands of miles. Bell transmitted his voice using mirrors and a satellite receiver 1,300 feet away in another building. It took direct sunlight, but the voice was very clear.
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Bell patented the “photophone”, a system of transmitting voice via beams of light using mirrors and a large dish.
The archives also contain the original transistor invented by AT&T physicists John Bardeen and Walter Brattain, which Caughlin says is “the second greatest invention ever to come out of AT&T.”
It’s the technology that underpins most things on my desk and whatever device you’re reading this story on. “In your smartphone, you have about 20 billion transistors,” Caughlin pointed out.
His 1950 patent is also included in the collection.
The first transistor is part of the AT&T archives.
Connections yesterday and today
In this Boston laboratory in 1876, the network consisted of a copper wire connecting Bell’s transmitter to the receiver that Watson was using. Today, AT&T says it’s moving an exabyte (1 billion gigabytes, or the storage equivalent of nearly $4 million). iPhone17E smartphones) of data on its network every day.
Voice calls represent a small fraction of this traffic. The technology that connects our phones (5G networks, fiber optic networks, satellite calls) continues to evolve even though the number of calls is only a small part of how we communicate. Nearly three times as many text messages as voice calls passed through the AT&T network in 2025.
Personally, I will almost always prefer to chat via text rather than make a phone call, mainly for the sake of speed.
But the phone calls haven’t disappeared. On the contrary, they have become a nuisance, given the barrage of scam calls and now impersonal AI-powered customer service systems that stand in the way of human connection. Today’s carriers and phone manufacturers must implement more aggressive measures. filter toolsbut with mixed success.
And yet, when I want to connect and focus all my attention on someone, a voice call or video call is the way to do it. And unlike in the past, I can make a call from anywhere without worrying about long distance charges. Hell, I don’t even have to memorize phone numbers anymore: I just tap one of my favorite contacts or ask the resident’s disembodied voice assistant to make the call for me.
Bell undoubtedly knew the importance of hearing someone’s voice, live, on the telephone line. A century and a half later, thanks to incredible advances in telephone technology, this connection is still just as valuable.
