Antonio Mucci invented the telephone.

You probably knew that.

The paperwork is clear.

He was a poor inventor with barely enough money to apply for the first patent.

His wife Elsa ponded all of his materials and it took him years to finally find enough

stuff to send Western Union hoping they would adopt his new technology.

Finally, he gave up heartbroken.

And it was his lab mate, Alexander Graham Bell, who ended up with all the profits and

all the fame.

So if Alexander Graham Bell didn't invent the telephone and he didn't, what did he invent?

Well he invented the Bell system.

The Bell system was the forebearer of the universal telephone network that we all take

for granted, that you can pick up the phone and call anywhere in the world and the same

system will connect you to that person at the other end.

Shortly after Bell had patented the stolen telephone invention, he had a problem.

The problem was it was too difficult for one man or one organization to wire the entire

United States and the world for telephone service.

At one point there were 6,000 phone companies in the United States and it was impossible

to pick up a phone in New York and call California.

And part of the magic of the Bell system, which evolved over the course of decades, was

interoperability and this is a podcast about the magic of interoperability and the risks

that all of us face when it's not there.

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