The first phone was invented in 1876 by Alexander Graham Bell. By the 1920's, the first telephone service between the United States and the United Kingdom was set up, though the phones then were the expensive radio phones. In the 1950's the invention of the transatlantic telephone cable made calls much more affordable than the radio telephone it replaced. In 1973, the cellular network competitor, Martin Cooper and his team designed and launched the first practical wireless cellphone. It would take several more years to build cellular networks, and to drive down the commercial cost of the cellphone for broader consumer availability. This process eventually paid off , as the convenience that a cellphone offers cannot be underestimated today.

Alysson Hall, who plays Jane Eyre in the YouTube series, The Autobiography of Jane Eyre searched to find her cellphone in order to know the time (0:36, "Mistake", Ep: 3). The setting in Livesey's The Flight of Gemma Hardy features telephones, though mainly they appear in businesses, some residental homes, or in phone booths. Gemma makes note of this on p. 360 by saying, "There was a phone booth in the village, I remembered, not far from school." In Bronte's Jane Eyre setting there are no telephones mentioned, since they were invented late into the 19th century, which meant that long distance communication had to be handled in the form of a letter, or passed along through word of mouth. Cellphones today are a common convenience, and are a reliable mode of communication, unlike the telephone used in previous decades. 

Bibliography

Hall, Alysson/Jane Eyre. The Autobiography of Jane Eyre. "Mistake-Ep: 3". Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 10 April 2013. Web. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Tyrph0QrD8&list=PL3NxAiyc-89HP3wHV2y5mbwi2TidvocKZ&index=3

Livesey, Margot.  The Flight of Gemma Hardy. HarperCollins, 2012.

Information Source: "The History of the Telephone." mitel.com. Mitel. Web. Date Accessed, 28 Oct. 2019. https://www.mitel.com/articles/history-telephone

Image Source: https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-the-telephone-alexander-graham-bell-1991380