Vatican Telephone Service

The Telephone Exchange

Vatican telecommunications started in 1886, at the beginnings of telephony, thanks to Giovanni Battista Marzi who invented the world's first automatic telephone exchange which linked 10 separate phones. A few decades later Guglielmo Marconi effected the first Italian link via radio connecting the Holy See and the Papal Residence at Castel Gandolfo.
Regular telephone services within the Vatican State began after the stipulation of the Lateran Treaty (Patti Lateranensi) with the installation of a number of telephones in various Vatican offices and residences linked via the Roman urban telephone network. The first central telephone exchange, donated by the American Catholics in 1930, was installed in the Belvedere building and provided telephone services for approximately 360 end users; it remained in use until 1960 when it was replaced by a Pentaconta exchange with a capacity of 1,500 numbers later extended to 3,000.
During the month of June 1992 the Vatican State's third central telephone exchange was inaugurated providing the Vatican City with a most advanced technological interface to the rest of the world, thus qualifying the Vatican State amongst the first to have a completely numeric telephone network. The plant is installed in a forepart of the Belvedere building and consists of a modern numeric telephone exchange with 5,120 terminations, connected via optic fibre TELECOM ITALIA's network; the exchange is also equipped with a numeric switch for operator call management and it is linked via radio to he extra-territorial zones of San Giovanni in Laterano, Palazzo di San Callisto and Palazzo della Cancelleria.