Chapter 600 - 286: Manual Telephone Exchange

The automobile exhibition achieved great success, with more than 100 cars sold on the exhibition day, bringing Royal Mercedes-Benz Company a net income of over 300,000 Pesseta that day.

But that’s not all, the exhibition lasted for three days in total, with daily sales averaging over 100 cars.

Although car sales plummeted after the exhibition ended, they could still maintain a rate of about 10 cars per day.

As 1881 came to an end, Benz sent Carlo the whole year’s development situation of the automobile company.

It was essentially the sales situation from the month following the automobile exhibition. Although it was only a month, Royal Mercedes-Benz Company managed to sell over 600 cars during this period.

Based on a net profit of 3,000 Pesseta per car, the net profit from over 600 cars is at least 1.8 million Pesseta.

If calculated at a selling price of 15,000 Pesseta per car, Royal Mercedes-Benz Company gathered over 9 million Pesseta in funds in just this one month.

Although half of this is the credit of the automobile exhibition, it is undeniable that Benz’s Mercedes-Benz Company has achieved great success.

Even if only a few cars are sold daily afterwards, the company’s net income can still reach tens of thousands of Pesseta.

A year has 365 days, and the annual net income is a massive figure of three to four million Pesseta.

As for whether Mercedes-Benz can achieve daily sales of several cars, it might not be possible relying solely on Spain, but considering the entire European market, reaching this level is absolutely effortless.

Although the annual guaranteed income of several million by Royal Mercedes-Benz Company seems ample, at this moment for Carlo, this amount of money is nothing significant.

Unless car sales can surge, or Mercedes-Benz Company can develop a new generation of more excellent cars, Carlo has little energy to pay further attention to the company’s situation.

As time moved into 1882, a new technology captured Carlo’s attention, which was wired telephone technology.

Wired telephone technology, like automobiles, is an invention capable of changing the world. Although the wired telephone technology of this era is still cumbersome and relies on manual telephone exchanges for calls.

But it is undeniable that it is through the step-by-step exploration of these cumbersome technologies that telecommunications technology became so developed in later generations.

If not for the efforts of the pioneers of this era, future technology could not have stood on the shoulders of giants and moved forward.

It’s worth mentioning that the so-called wired telephone is not the result of Spanish scientists’ efforts but the research achievement of Alexander Graham Bell.

This famous Mr. Bell is the scientist who developed a metal detector for the assassinated President of the United States, Garfield.

In later generations, there are various claims about who exactly invented the telephone. But in this era, Bell, as the first person to apply for a telephone patent, is naturally regarded as the undisputed inventor of the telephone.

After he applied for the telephone patent, wired telephone technology quickly swept across the United States, and after crossing the Atlantic Ocean, it spread to Europe.

Carlo certainly knew the changes wired telephone technology brought to human life. Early on, after Bell applied for the telephone technology patent, Spain’s Royal Academy of Sciences had contacted Bell, intending to introduce Bell’s wired telephone technology.

There is no denying that the wired telephone technology of this time has significant shortcomings. The connection between phones is entirely reliant on wires, and to call different people, it must rely on manual telephone exchange to connect to different lines.

This also means that, ultimately, only a few people can use the telephone at this time. If the number of telephone users increases, the manual telephone exchange would become overly busy, causing frequent problems.

Besides, the current telephone technology has distance limitations. Although cross-city phone communication is possible, due to the distant reason, it affects the sound quality played through the telephone.

The spoken words certainly can be transmitted, but whether the person on the other end of the telephone can hear them clearly is not certain.

Despite having these various shortcomings, the wired telephone technology of this time is an absolute milestone for people who solely rely on wired telegraph for communication.

After all, the telegraph requires converting spoken words into code, which is then received by other stations through cables.

With a telephone, the other party can hear the spoken content in real-time through lines without the need for decoding the content.

After introducing Bell’s wired telephone patent, Spain decided to establish a manual telephone exchange in Madrid and connect telephones within the government first.

Phones would be installed in the residences and offices of cabinet ministers, several important government offices, and the Lower House, Royal Palace, etc.

Since the number of people using these phones is limited, the manual telephone exchange in Madrid does not have significant efficiency pressure.

Basically, only about a dozen employees are needed to ensure telephone communication in important places like the cabinet government, Royal Palace, and parliament.

The most obvious effect of connecting telephones in important government departments is that communication between departments becomes more rapid, and the cabinet government’s speed of handling messages would also be faster.

It is precisely seeing these benefits that various countries strongly support the development of telephones.