Sympatico goes MSN

[Duncan MacGregor]

>
> I'd never heard of him, until today and his bio says he developed a
> method of transmitting voice & telegraph over the same wires.  
> It 
> doesn't mention anything about a first long distance call.  

He obtained patents for that simultaneous transmission, and tested the whole 
approach using railway telegraph wire between Toronto and Hamilton.

Abner was a friend of the Bell family and was keenly interested in the 
invention made by Alexander Graham Bell. He secured early instruments and in 
1877 operated two-way and four-way circuits without an exchange and at first 
without any bells. He obtained an exclusive licence for the use of the 
telephone in Toronto, and in 1878 letters patent from the province for the 
Toronto Telephone Despatch Company. In April 1879 the company opened the 
first exchange and in June issued the first directory. In 1881 the company 
was purchased by the Bell Telephone Company of Canada, which had been 
incorporated by a Dominion statute of I880.

Local telephone:

His first experimental telephone use in Toronto involved the use of the wire 
of the fire alarm callbox system, which allowed the use of local 'call boxes' 
to  call in a fire. 

Since the wires were there, it made sense to try to use them for telephones as 
well. He developed and patented a means of simultaneous telegraph and 
telephone use of the same wire, and tested the whole process at night between 
Toronto and Hamilton using railway telegraph wire . This was in 1878, and 
predated the work of Van Rysselberghe.


> >Bell's call 
> was from Brantford to Paris Ontario on Aug 10, 1878.
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