But these simple parts and the equally simple first telephone call -- "Mr. Watson, come here, I want you!" -- belie a complicated past.

By 1878, Bell had set up the first telephone exchange in New Haven, Connecticut. By 1884, long distance connections were made between Boston, Massachusetts and New York City.

The First Telephone Call ; March 10, 1876 ; What were the first words ever spoken on the telephone? ... They were spoken by Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, when he made the first

Bell on the telephone in New York (calling Chicago) in 1892 ... CREDIT: "Alexander Graham Bell Speaking on the Phone, 1892." 1892. Gilbert H. Grosvenor Collection, Prints and Photographs

Courtesy of the National Museum of American History, gift of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, 1923.

FIG. 1 Alexander Graham Bell's first telephone. ... Voice sounds were transmitted for the first time on June 3, 1875, over this gallows-shaped instrument. Bell's first telephone patent issued in 1976.

This photo shows the women sitting at a switchboard as RichmondHill's first telephone operators.

On March 10, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell conducted a successful experiment with the telephone.

Ask who really invented the telephone, and you may ... To send sound, the first diaphragm shouldn't make or break contact. It should vary the flow of electricity to the second diaphragm continuously.

WE got our first phone in 1989. It cost $5,000 and took a week to install. One of the great boons of living out on an island in the Gulf of Alaska had been having no telephone to answer.