The distance over which conversations can be held has been increased from twenty miles to twenty-five hundred.

But this is not far enough.

There are some civilized human beings who are twelve thousand miles apart, and who have interests in common.

During the Boxer Rebellion in China, for instance, there were Americans in Peking who would gladly have given half of their fortune for the use of a pair of wires to New York.
In the earliest days of the telephone, Bell was fond of prophesying that "the time will come when we will talk across the Atlantic Ocean"; but this was regarded as a poetical fancy until Pupin invented his method of automatically propelling the electric current.

Since then the most conservative engineer will discuss the problem of transatlantic telephony.