where did the first rotary dial telephone come from?

Question

I wonder if anyone can get this one? its a really interesting story.

Answer 1

You can read the entire story about the inventor Almon Strowger here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almon_Strowger

He was convinced that the local manual telephone exchange operators were sending calls to his competitor rather than his business and he wanted a way for the consumer to dial direct.

Answer 2

The first dial telephone was introduced in 1897 by the Automatic Electric Company, founded in 1891 by Alman Brown Strowger, a Kansas undertaker. In 1889, convinced that the Bell "central exchange" was diverting his incoming calls to a rival embalmer, Strowger invented the automatic switchboard system, which was controlled by a number-dialing system. The system was first installed in 1892 in LaPorte, IN. In Strowger's 1897 model telephone, however, the rotary dial had not holes, but depressions similar to gear teeth, along about 170 degrees of the edge of the dial disc.

The telephone, of course, was invented by Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) in 1876. The first commercial exchange was opened in 1878 (with 12 users), and in 1879, the multiple switchboard system was invented by engineer Leroy B. Firman, making the telephone a commercial success with 250,000 users by 1890.

Answer 3

The USA or France. Almon Strowger invented the idea of automated switching, but not the rotary dial. That was part of Antoine Barnay's invention.

"The first automatic telephone switch that did not require manual operation was patented by Almon Strowger of Kansas City in 1891, but because of the perceived complexity of automatic circuit switching (and in some cases, simple inertia) manual switchboards remained in common use in many places until the middle of the 20th century."

"Automated switching, which was developed in [May 18] 1923 by Frenchman Antoine Barnay, allows callers to signal the network by dialing numbers on their phones using pulses generated by a numbered rotary dial."

"The Lazy Person's Guide to Voice Telephony Part I", CHIPS - The Department of the Navy Information Technology Magazine : http://www.chips.navy.mil/archives/04_winter/web_pages/voice_telephony.htm

"The rotary dial is a device mounted on or in a telephone or switchboard that is designed to send interrupted electrical pulses, known as pulse dialing, corresponding to the number dialed. It was invented in 1888 by Almon Strowger."

"Rotary dial" : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_dial

"The first rotary dial telephone was developed in [May 18 ]1923 by Antoine Barnay in France."

"TELEPHONE", ideafinder.com : http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/telephone.htm

Almon Brown Strowger (1839, Penfield, near Rochester, New York – 1902-05-26, St. Petersburg, Florida) gave his name to the electromechanical telephone exchange technology that his invention and patent inspired :
Automatic Telephone Exchange – US patent No. 447,918

"The patent consists of: A device for use by the customer - this creates trains of on-off current pulses corresponding to the digits 0-9. This equipment originally consisted of two telegraph keys, and evolved into the rotary dial telephone."

"Almon Brown Strowger" : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almon_Strowger

Answer 4

Canada.