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

Robert Bonomi (bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com)
Mon, 19 Feb 2007 15:43:09 -0000

In article <telecom26.50.5@telecom-digest.org>, TELECOM Digest Editor
noted in response to <Wesrock@aol.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, party lines were intended to conserve wire-pairs.

As such the parties were served off the same trunk cable. Usually the
same wire-pair all the way to the customer premises. It would have
been possible, albeit unlikely, for the parties to be on separate
'feeder' cables to a concentration point, and shared a single wire
pair only from the concentration point back to the C.O.

They didn't have to be in 'immediate' proximity to each other, they
could be anywhere a 'multiple' tap on that cable pair existed.

In the 'late days' of part-line use, when the only users were those
who were grandfathered in on a 'discontinued' tariff, it was _not_
uncommon to find the 'parties' in wildly different physical locations,
with each on their own dedicated pair, all the way from the C.O. to
the C.P.

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