The telephone or phone (Greek: tele = far away and phone = voice) is a telecommunications device which is used to transmit and receive sound (most commonly voice and speech) across distance. Most telephones operate through transmission of electric signals over a complex telephone network which allows almost any phone user to communicate with almost any other.

There are four principal means by which an end user using a telephone handset may connect to a telephone network: a traditional fixed phone "landline", which uses dedicated physical wire connections connected to a single location; wireless and radio telephones, which use either analog or digital radio signals; satellite telephones, which utilise telecommunications satellites; and voice over internet protocol (VOIP) telephones, which use broadband internet connections.

Between end users, transmissions across a network may be carried by fiber optic cable, point to point microwave or satellite relay.

Until relatively recently, a "telephone" generally referred only to landlines. Cordless and mobile phones are now common in many places around the world, with mobile phones expected to gradually displace the conventional landline telephone. Unlike a mobile phone, a cordless telephone is considered to be landline because it is only useable within a short distance of a small personal or domestic base station connected to a fixed phone line.

The identity of the inventor of the electric telephone remains in dispute. Antonio Meucci, Philip Reis, and Alexander Graham Bell, amongst others, have all been credited with the invention.