“Hello, Hello? Can you hear me?” I meowed into the telephone to my friend who lives in Tokyo, Japan. “Moshi moshi Gulliver. No need to shout, I can hear you even 5100 miles away!” The first telephones were strung in 1876. They were used by businesses and government centers, and each call required six connections: the caller, four switchboard operators and the receiver. All the operators listened to the conversations to know when to disconnect the lines. As more telephone lines were strung, most homes had a phone. There were “party lines” with different rings for each house, but anyone on the line could listen in. Later telephones used rotary dials and people had their own “address” of numbers and letters, for each private line. Cell phones can be traced back to two way radios used by taxicabs and police, and are now more common than “landlines” which are tied to a location. But if it takes pictures and can use the internet like a computer, why is it still called a phone? Purrs, Gulliver