Vodafone, the world's biggest mobile-telephone operator, recently pointed a finger at Spain when it issued a 2008 profit warning.

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Many of these early silent films involved a damsel-in-distress telephone operator calling for help in the midst of a robbery.

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Debitel, which owns no cables or transmitters, has already become the country's third-largest mobile-telephone operator by buying capacity from other companies and marketing it more shrewdly.

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And eventually, a telephone operator -- a telegraph operator sent out a simple message to the cheers of a waiting nation.

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The telephone-equipment companies want voice dialling (useful in cars), automatic call-centres, computerised operator-services and messaging that allows users to pick up and send e-mails and faxes on an ordinary telephone anywhere in the world.

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