Spark-gap transmitter capacitance and couldn't store much charge, limiting their power output. Therefore these devices were not capable of long distance transmission; their reception range with the primitive receivers employed was typically limited to roughly 100 yards (100 meters). Italian radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi was one of the first people to believe that radio waves could be used for long distance communication, and singlehandedly developed the first practical radiotelegraphy transmitters and receivers, mainly by combining and tinkering with the inventions of others. Starting at age 21 on his family's estate in Italy, between 1894 and 1901 he conducted a long series of
Long line (telecommunications) Long line (telecommunications) In telephone systems nomenclature, a long line is a transmission line in a long-distance communications network such as carrier systems, microwave radio relay links, geosynchronous satellite links, underground cables, aerial cables and open wire, and Submarine communications cables. In the United States, some of this technology was spun off into the corporate entity known as "AT&T Long Distance" with the breakup of AT&T in 1984. Prior to then, the AT&T Long Lines division of the Bell System, which was what AT&T called itself when it was responsible for providing both long distance and local telephone service before