PUSKÁS, Tivadar
* 17. 9. 1844, Pešta, Hungary
† 16. 3. 1893, Budapest, Hungary
inventor (telephone reporter) / telephone pioneer
P. entered the Higher Technical School in Vienna, but could not finish it because of the death of his father. Like so many others he emigrated to the USA. This led him to Thomas A. Edison’s laboratory, where he worked and after a few years took on the representation of Edison inventions in Europe.
According to Edison, P. was the first person to suggest the idea of a telephone exchange. He certainly set up the first European telephone exchange in Paris. Some time before that, while he was in Budapest he organized the first telephone network in Hungary. In 1887 he introduced the multiplex switchboard. In 1893 he returned to Budapest where he introduced the first Telephone News Service which announced news and "broadcasted" programmes and was in many ways the forerunner of the radio. The basis for this was the invention of the so-called Telefon-Hirmondó (voice rapporteur) from 1883. His phone broadcast worked in Budapest from 1893 to 1932.
