telephony

noun

te·le·pho·ny | \ tə-ˈle-fə-nē

How to pronounce telephony (audio)

also ˈte-lə-ˌfō- \

Definition of telephony

: the use or operation of an apparatus (such as a telephone) for transmission of sounds as electrical signals between widely removed points

Examples of telephony in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web Lifeline is part of the FCC’s Universal Service Fund which offers a supplement to low-income Americans to purchase telephony and broadband. — Roslyn Layton, Forbes, "The Verizon-Tracfone Merger Can Make High-Speed Broadband More Accessible During Covid-19," 17 Mar. 2021 With so many employees working from home right now, the market for telephony headsets is on fire. — Mark Sparrow, Forbes, "EPOS Headset Software Is Now Available For MacOS," 25 Feb. 2021 If someone joins a Zoom meeting through a regular phone call, for example, Zoom can't extend its encryption to the legacy telephony network. — Lily Hay Newman, Wired, "So Wait, How Encrypted Are Zoom Meetings Really?," 3 Apr. 2020 For in every other realm, the country’s largest companies have midwifed this societal retreat from telephony. — Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic, "Phones Are the Best Technology," 4 Feb. 2020 In Russia, a rash of Telegram account breaches has led some researchers to believe that hackers are gaining access through telephony network hacking. — Wired, "Security News This Week: 15 Million Iranian Bank Accounts Were Breached," 14 Dec. 2019 This early version of internet telephony — the technology that came to be known as voice over IP — helped pave the way for the delivery of voice, and eventually video, across the internet. — Katie Hafner, New York Times, "Danny Cohen, Who Helped Set the Stage for a Digital Era, Dies at 81," 16 Aug. 2019 Estonia—the birthplace of Skype, an internet-telephony app—has been a leader in digitising public services, such as filing taxes and voting. — The Economist, "High internet use and state support help countries ditch cash," 1 Aug. 2019 But Caruana says that he was also drawn to speak at Defcon because elevators represent one of the last frontiers of phreaking in a world where the quirks of analog telephony have been largely replaced by digital equipment. — Andy Greenberg, WIRED, "Inside the Hidden World of Elevator Phone Phreaking," 9 Aug. 2019

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'telephony.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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Last Updated

21 Mar 2021

Cite this Entry

“Telephony.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/telephony. Accessed 10 Apr. 2021.

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More Definitions for telephony

telephony

noun

English Language Learners Definition of telephony

technical : the use of a telephone system to send and receive sounds over long distances

See the full definition for telephony in the English Language Learners Dictionary

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