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.
Rochester Telephone Corporation
Rochester Telephone got its start late in the nineteenth century. Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1875, and the following year he patented it and exhibited his device to great acclaim at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. By July 1877, the telephone had made its way to Rochester, New York, where a line was strung between the offices of the Phillips Coal Company and its coal yards a mile and a half away. Following this precedent, in 1879, Rochester established two telephone companies, one a franchise of the American Bell Telephone Company, and one a part of the Edison company. The Bell affiliate, called the Rochester Telephonic Exchange, was a branch of the Bell Company of Buffalo.