who is credited with suggesting the word hello be used when answering the phone
Hello The use of hello as a telephone greeting has been credited to Thomas Edison; according to one source, he expressed his surprise with a misheard Hullo.[11] Alexander Graham Bell initially used Ahoy (as used on ships) as a telephone greeting.[12][13] However, in 1877, Edison wrote to T.B.A. David, the president of the Central District and Printing Telegraph Company of Pittsburgh:
Invention of the telephone Alexander Graham Bell is the inventor of the first practical telephone. The classic story of him saying "Watson, come here! I want to see you!" is a well-known part of the history of the telephone. This showed that the telephone worked, but it was a short-range phone.[20][21] Bell was the first to obtain a patent, in 1876, for an "apparatus for transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically", after experimenting with many primitive sound transmitters and receivers. Bell was also an astute and articulate businessman with influential and wealthy friends.