Description:

The year of Australia's first Telephone Exchange

    Exhibited:
  • Paper Items, General
  • Literature:
  • Ephemera, Cards & Documents
  • Medium:
  • 520
  • Circa:
  • Collectibles
  • Notes:
  • In 1879 the first telephone service in Australia linked two branches of a Melbourne firm, and in August 1880, the Melbourne Telephone Exchange Company opened the first telephone exchange using the technologies invented and developed by Bell and Edison. This agreement dated the 17th January 1880 between the Oriental Telephone Company and the Western Electric Company licenses the latter for a period of fourteen years 'to the exclusive right to use in the Australian Colonies all the inventions of Thomas Alva Edison relating to telephones or telephone apparatus.' The agreement also covered the local patents of the 'inventor' of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell.

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22 August 2021 12:00 AEST
Paddington, Sydney, Australia

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