Telefon Hírmondó: The Oldest Ancestor of the Internet

A good part of the technological explosion at the end of the 19th century went through the development of telephony, which, for lack of a better term, revolutionized the way people communicated. Among all that wonderful activity emerged the name of Tivadar Puskás, a Hungarian engineer known for having created the first telephone exchange between 1873 and 1877. Puskás was one of the few who recognized the limitations of the traditional newspaper, unable to stay updated with daily events. His answer? Telefon Hírmondó, a kind of “telephone newspaper”, which we remember today as one of the first “online” services on the planet.

Many compare the impact of the telephone to the arrival of the Internet, but I think at the time it was greater. Imagine the astonishment of the public moving from “dots and dashes” to “a voice from the other side”. The world had changed completely, and from then on, the sky was the limit. Almost in record time, the pioneers of telephony realized that this technology could go beyond 1-to-1 connections.

One of those pioneers was Tivadar Puskás, a Hungarian engineer who worked with none other than Thomas Edison (something not easy considering his personality), and developed the first telephone exchange. The intersection of Puskás and telephony was not immediate, since initially he devoted himself to travel and gold mining, but in the twenty years following the invention of the telephone exchange, an idea began to dance in his head: Telefon Hírmondó.

Telefon Hírmondó: The news, at home

In essence, Telefon Hírmondó was a virtual newspaper, through which subscribers could receive updated news and entertainment using the telephone network as a means of distribution. After confirming his intellectual property in some countries, Puskás launched Telefon Hírmondó on February 15, 1893, in the city of Budapest, greeting his first 60 users.

Its general programming was divided into blocks of 15 or 30 minutes, with the exception of musical transmissions, which could last up to two hours. Added to this was special content for the little ones at home, and information coming from the racetrack.

Each subscriber received two receivers connected to a nearby hub, which in turn was linked to the central office. The company absorbed the installation cost, but customers had to enter into a 12-month contract. Telefon Hírmondó depended on the local telephone company, but later received the necessary permits to deploy its own network, starting with 69 kilometers of cable.

It must not have taken too long for the government to recognize the latent power of Telefon Hírmondó, and in September 1894 it was slightly adapted, following a new series of regulations. Basically, the news was written in advance, with copies signed by those responsible for the service, and sent to both the Royal Prosecutor of Budapest and the police and other officials. In just 14 years, Telefon Hírmondó went from those original 60 subscribers to more than 15 thousand... including Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria himself.

The news service lasted until 1925. From then on, it dedicated itself to relaying local radio signals, and its definitive closure came in 1944, influenced by World War II and the destruction of its infrastructure. Telefon Hírmondó was a true pioneer in the distribution of news and content broadcasting, but our story ends with a sad touch, because Tivadar Puskás never got to see its full evolution. He died a month after its launch, on March 16, 1893.