Invention of the telephone hardly a commercially practical telephone in the modern sense. Thomas Edison tested the Reis equipment and found that "single words, uttered as in reading, speaking and the like, were perceptible indistinctly, notwithstanding here also the inflections of the voice, the modulations of interrogation, wonder, command, etc., attained distinct expression." In 1947, the Reis device was tested by the British company Standard Telephones and Cables (STC). The results also confirmed it could transmit and receive speech with good quality (fidelity), but relatively low intensity. At the time STC was bidding for a contract with Alexander Graham Bell's American Telephone and Telegraph
Invention of the telephone stretched on a ring, carried an oblong piece of soft iron cemented to its middle. A funnel-shaped mouthpiece directed the voice sounds upon the membrane, and as it vibrated, the soft iron "armature" induced corresponding currents in the coils of the electromagnet. These currents, after traversing the wire, passed through the receiver which consisted of an electromagnet in a tubular metal can having one end partially closed by a thin circular disc of soft iron. When the undulatory current passed through the coil of this electromagnet, the disc vibrated, thereby creating sound waves in the air. This primitive telephone was