Радио және телефон байланысын қосатын құрылғы

Device to connects a two way radio to the telephone system

The Carterfone is a device invented by Thomas Carter. It connects a two way radio system to the telephone system, allowing someone on the radio to talk to someone on the phone. This makes it a direct predecessor to today's autopatch. The connection is acoustic sound travels through the air between the Carterfone and a conventional telephone that is part of the telephone system. The reason the Carterfone connected the telephone and radio acoustically, instead of electrically, is that telephone network owners were legally allowed to and did bar devices they did not own from being connected electrically to their networks. The Carterfone decision (13 F. C. C.2d 420) was a landmark United States regulatory decision that opened the public switched telephone network (PSTN) in America to customer premises equipment (CPE). Twelve years earlier, a court had ruled in the Hush A Phone case that devices could mechanically connect to the telephone system (such as a rubber cup attached to a phone company owned telephone) without the permission of AT&T. In 1968, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) extended this privilege by allowing the Carterfone and other devices to be connected electrically to the AT&T network, as long as they did not cause harm to the system.

The device was acoustically, but not electrically, connected to the public switched telephone network. It was electrically connected to the base station of the mobile radio system, and got its power from the base station.

This particular device was involved in a landmark United States regulatory decision related to telecommunications. In a twelve year prior decision from 1956, a court had ruled in the Hush A Phone case that devices could mechanically connect to the telephone system (such as a rubber cup attached to a phone company owned telephone) without the permission of AT&T. In 1968, the Federal Communications Commission extended this privilege by allowing the Carterfone and other devices to be connected electrically to the AT&T network, as long as they did not cause harm to the system. This ruling, commonly called "the Carterfone decision" (13 F. C. C.2d 420), created the possibility of selling devices that could connect to the phone system using a protective coupler and opened the market to customer premises equipment. The decision is often referred to as "any lawful device", allowing later innovations like answering machines, fax machines, and modems (which initially used the same type of manual acoustic coupler as the Carterfone) to proliferate. In February 2007, a petition for rulemaking was filed with the FCC by Skype, requesting the FCC to apply the Carterfone regulations to the wireless industry—which would mean that OEMs, portals and others will be able to offer wireless devices and services without the cellular operators needing to approve the handsets. However, on April 1, 2008, FCC chairman Kevin Martin indicated that he would oppose Skype's request. On April 17, 2015, this petition for rulemaking was dismissed without prejudice by the FCC at the request of Skype's current owner, Microsoft Corporation.