Telephone "voice", together meaning "distant voice". Credit for the invention of the electric telephone is frequently disputed. As with other influential inventions such as radio, television, the light bulb, and the computer, several inventors pioneered experimental work on "voice transmission over a wire" and improved on each other's ideas. New controversies over the issue still arise from time to time. Charles Bourseul, Antonio Meucci, Johann Philipp Reis, Alexander Graham Bell, and Elisha Gray, amongst others, have all been credited with the invention of the telephone. Alexander Graham Bell was the first to be awarded a patent for the electric telephone by
Invention of the telephone early invention of inductive loading of telephone wires to increase long-distance signals. Unfortunately, serious burns from an accident, a lack of English, and poor business abilities resulted in Meucci's failing to develop his inventions commercially in America. Meucci demonstrated some sort of instrument in 1849 in Havana, Cuba, however, this may have been a variant of a string telephone that used wire. Meucci has been further credited with the invention of an anti-sidetone circuit. However, examination showed that his solution to sidetone was to maintain two separate telephone circuits and thus use twice as many transmission wires. The anti-sidetone circuit