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Hello, Hello … The Telephone comes to Denmark

By Lars Heide

The entry of the telephone into Denmark was characterized by private initiatives. It took the state more than 15 years to get cracking.


Telephones were advertised in the newspaper, Fyns Stiftstidende, at the end of 1877. Alexander Graham Bell had invented the telephone in the US where it had been exhibited at the World Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876. This also touched some echoing chord in Denmark. People who were interested in technique and who could afford it started to experiment with connecting two telephones. The telegraph service used telegraph wires between two towns. In that way it was demonstrated that calls could be made over long distances.

The First Telephone Companies

Town merchants, doctors, pharmacists, and lawyers saw the potential of the telephone. You could exchange of information and making agreements without having to meet or write. To own a telephone was prestigious.

A telephone system in a town required organization. During the years from 1878 to 1894, 57 telephone companies were established all over the country. Most of them comprised a provincial town like Hjørring, Grenå, or Middelfart and had even in 1894 less than 100 subscribers.

Nationalization Attempts

Originally, the state telegraph was not interested in the telephone. Some unsuccessful experiments were made in 1877, but the telephone was considered an alternative to the telegraph. There was no reason to replace an efficient telegraph network with a technology which was still at the experimental stage.

Six years later the situation had changed. The telephone had been improved and was close to a breakthrough in a new area: direct communication among the citizens. At the same time large telephone systems were being established abroad. In 1883 the government therefore introduced a bill on giving the state a monopoly of telephone activities. Opposition came from two sides. In the first place, from the director of Privatbanken, C. F. Tietgen, who was behind the Copenhagen Telephone Company; secondly, from the Liberal party. It was in the middle of the constitutional struggle between the Conservatives and the Liberals. The Liberals was in the majority in the Danish parliament, and the bill was never put to the vote.

Need for Legislation

The merchants’, doctors’, pharmacists’, and lawyers’ benefit of a telephone increased considerably if connection to the telephone system in the surrounding towns was established. Soon, telephone wires were connecting the towns. So far the length of the wires between two subscribers had rarely exceeded 10 km. But there are 44 km from Odense to Svendborg, 34 km to Nyborg, and 49 km to Middelfart. The increased distance made bigger technical demands on the equipment, as well telephone apparatuses as wires. Some of the early connections were based on a single wire combined with earthing. Common standards were needed.

The established telephone installations were based don agreements with municipalities and counties (rural district councils). Connection between the provinces crossing the straits required permission from the state. Therefore it was the state telegraph service which established a connection to Sweden in 1893. This became the starting signal for the establishment of a state-owned telephone network connecting provinces and telephone companies. In 1894, the state telegraph established a telephone line from Copenhagen to Odense. The following year the connection was extended via Fredericia to Vejle, Aarhus, and Kolding, and the network expanded further during the subsequent years.

With that the State Telegraph began to compete with the private companies. This and the lack of delineation of frontiers among the private companies themselves demonstrated the need for legislation.

The Concession Law 1897

More than 10 years had passed since the first attempts of legislation in that area. Now there were 57 telephone companies, the interests of which it was impossible to ignore just like that. They had a value which made the Government uninterested in expropriation. This would also have commoved the Liberals in Parliament. The entry of telephones in the rural districts was still far away, and expropriation would mean increased Government expenditure.

The result was a law in 1897 maintaining the state’s exclusive right to telephone operations, but also opened the possibility for to give private companies a concession to telephone operations. In the end 11 concessions were granted; a figure which had shrunk to 3 in 1946 through buying up and mergers.

The three companies were the Copenhagen Telephone Company Ltd., the Municipal Telephone Company of Funen, and the Jutland Telephone Company Ltd. After the reunification in 1920, the State Telephone took over the local operations in South Jutland. The regions of operation of the various telephone companies were tied together by the State Telephone (later: the trunk exchange). You would call e.g. from Søborg to Randers via a trunk exchange wire from Copenhagen to Aarhus.

Denmark was late in instituting national regulation of the telephone sector. The result was a collaboration between private companies and a public institution.





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