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.
Openmoko
The Neo 1973 (codenamed GTA01) phone was a "developers only" release. The device is named after the first year of cellular telephone communication: the inventor of the cellular phone, Martin Cooper, made the first call in 1973. The phone released was inconsistently-named Neo 1973 or Neo1973. The Neo 1973 was sold from July 9, 2007 to February 2008. It was priced at US$300 for the basic model, or US$450 for a kit including more tools for hardware work.