TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Party Line Dialing, was Re: Telephone Area Codes and Prefixes

Re: Party Line Dialing, was Re: Telephone Area Codes and Prefixes

Carl Navarro (cnavarro@wcnet.org)
Mon, 19 Feb 2007 07:14:05 -0500

On Sun, 18 Feb 2007 20:10:51 EST, Wesrock@aol.com wrote:

> Not all places had provision for more than two types of ringing.
> Others had four, as you suggest. Many non-Bell companies used
> harmonic ringing which, at least in theory, could provide for eight or
> 10 distinct parties with single ringing. Some were more reliable than
> others.

In our Northwest Ohio independent environment, you had 5 frequencies.
We had both decimonic and harmonic ring plans in our various central
offices. In practice, we had 2,4 and 8 party lines.

> Wes Leatherock
> wesrock@aol.com
> wleathus@yahoo.com

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Am I correct in thinking that all
> party-line subscribers were geographically close to each other (such
> as a few doors away, or across the alley?) Were they nearly or always
> on the same cable out of the central office? Or were there party line
> subscribers across town from each other? PAT]

Originally, in TPL offices, the parties were on the same cable. In
TPS, you used bridge lifters to add unrelated areas to party lines.
Usually we did that to coerce :-) people to upgrade. That and the
fact it was about 80 cents difference between 4 party and 2 party
service and maybe a couple of bucks to go to 4 party from 8 party. I
think nearly all 8 party service was eliminated by 1975 or so.

Carl Navarro

Post Followup Article Use your browser's quoting feature to quote article into reply
Go to Next message: Robert Bonomi: "Re: Party Line Dialing, was Re: Telephone Area Codes and Prefixes"
Go to Previous message: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com: "Re: Party Line Dialing, was Re: Telephone Area Codes and Prefixes"
May be in reply to: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com: "Party Line Dialing, was Re: Telephone Area Codes and Prefixes"
Next in thread: Robert Bonomi: "Re: Party Line Dialing, was Re: Telephone Area Codes and Prefixes"
TELECOM Digest: Home Page