<P> This history of the telephone chronicles the development of the electrical telephone, and includes a brief review of its predecessors . </P> <P> Before the invention of electromagnetic telephones, mechanical acoustic devices existed for transmitting speech and music over a distance greater than that of normal direct speech . The earliest mechanical telephones were based on sound transmission through pipes or other physical media . The acoustic tin can telephone, or "lovers' phone", has been known for centuries . It connects two diaphragms with a taut string or wire, which transmits sound by mechanical vibrations from one to the other along the wire (and not by a modulated electric current). The classic example is the children's toy made by connecting the bottoms of two paper cups, metal cans, or plastic bottles with tautly held string . </P> <P> Among the earliest known experiments were those conducted by the British physicist and polymath Robert Hooke from 1664 to 1685 . An acoustic string phone made in 1667 is attributed to him . </P> <P> For a few years in the late 1800s, acoustic telephones were marketed commercially as a niche competitor to the electrical telephone . When the Bell telephone patents expired and many new telephone manufacturers began competing, acoustic telephone makers quickly went out of business . Their maximum range was very limited . An example of one such company was the Pulsion Telephone Supply Company created by Lemuel Mellett in Massachusetts, which designed its version in 1888 and deployed it on railroad right - of - ways . </P>

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