Telecommunication
The conventional telephone was invented independently by Alexander Bell and Elisha Gray in 1876. Antonio Meucci invented the first device that allowed the electrical transmission of voice over a line in 1849. However Meucci's device was of little practical value because it relied upon the electrophonic effect and thus required users to place the receiver in their mouth to "hear" what was being said. The first commercial telephone services were set-up in 1878 and 1879 on both sides of the Atlantic in the cities of New Haven and London.
History of videotelephony
Barely two years after the telephone was first patented in the United States in 1876 by Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, an early concept of a combined videophone and wide-screen television called a "telephonoscope" was conceptualized in the popular periodicals of the day. It was also mentioned in various early science fiction works such as "Le Vingtième siècle. La vie électrique" (The 20th century. The electrical life) and other works written by Albert Robida, and was also sketched in various cartoons by George du Maurier as a fictional invention of Thomas Edison. One such sketch was published on December 9, 1878 in "Punch" magazine.