10 March: 150 years since the first phone call and the decline of the landline in the UK
If you were born before the year 2000, you'll probably remember the clunky sound of a rotary dial, the tangled-up cord, and that classic shout: "I'm putting the phone down on you!" Well, 10 March isn't just any old date. Today marks exactly 150 years since Alexander Graham Bell made the first ever phone call, summoning his assistant with the famous line: "Mr Watson, come here, I want to see you." What many people don't realise is that very device which changed the world is slowly becoming a museum piece.
Here in Britain, the drop in landline usage is staggering. Since 2010, the number of active fixed-line phones has halved. If you're over 40, you'll remember a time when having a phone at home was a luxury – and today, kids look baffled when they spot a phone box on the street. Technology has moved on, and so have our habits. But have we lost something along the way?
The collector keeping history alive
It was this very thought that inspired YouTuber João Víctor de Melo, from Belo Horizonte, to start gathering telecommunication relics. On his channel, he showcases everything from vintage Telebrás models to rarities like the Aqua-air Aqpm-10 De Março Ac-5c-md 115V March, a piece of 1980s industrial kit that most people have forgotten ever existed. "It's my way of keeping the memory of how we used to communicate alive," João explains in one of his recent videos. His YouTube channel has become popular precisely because it digs out these objects that defined entire generations.
The landline's last gasp
A symbolic milestone in this farewell came on 10 March 2019, when the city of São Paulo removed its last public telephone from Avenida Paulista. At the time, the event went almost unnoticed, but for anyone with a sense of history, it marked the end of an era. The glass phone booths, once bustling with people using cards and coins, have been replaced by Wi-Fi hotspots and mobile charging points. Communication has changed its clothes, but the heart of it remains the same: our human need to connect.
From Graham Bell to WhatsApp: a timeline of connection
To really grasp the scale of this shift, it's worth looking at the key milestones from the past 150 years:
- 1876: Graham Bell makes the first telephone call in Boston.
- 1922: The first telephone arrives in Brazil, installed at the Catete Palace in Rio de Janeiro.
- 1990: Mobile phones go on sale in the country for the first time – they were absolute bricks, weighing over 1kg.
- 2010: Smartphones start to go mainstream, and landline numbers begin to plummet.
- 2026: We mark 150 years since that first phone call, and landlines are becoming an increasingly rare sight.
For all the tech we have today – Zoom, WhatsApp, and satellite calls – there's still something uniquely personal about ringing someone up. Maybe that's why people keep searching on YouTube for old Telesp adverts or that nostalgic rotary dial sound. 10 March is a reminder that, deep down, the method may change, but the urge to say "hello" is here to stay.