atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Telecom Service & Providers Party Lines

Back in the 1970's (before the Bell divestiture) you had to pay the phone company an extra fee (monthly) for each telephone in your house. The phone company "owned" them and rented them to you. It was illegal to connect your own phone. Where I grew up, most houses only had a couple of phones.

As a teenager, I had my own party line installed in my bedroom. At that time, people were installing their own phones with the ringers disconnected. I remember people telling me that if your phone rings, the phone company can tell, :nono: and will charge you extra for that phone.

Very true. It was very easy to determine the number of ringers connected through a simple capacitance test from the central office.

We used to get extra jacks installed for less than $3.00 each. How did we do this you ask? We would rent several extra sets when the service was connected. Bell would install them anywhere you wanted, anticipating the residual rental income. After a month or two, we'd turn in the sets and have them taken off the bill. The jacks remained in place and we would just provide our own sets.

Before anyone gets upset, I learned this trick from a New Jersey Bell installer!

When my folks moved back to KC in 1949, they got a 2-party line. About 1957 my dad picked up the phone and discovered that we finally had a 'partner party'. Since the union had just settled a strike, after only 3 days (!), he was feeling pretty wealthy. He called SWB and we became a high-falutin' private party! Those folks were lucky, 1 teenager and two 'preteens' in our house could have made life pretty rough, I guess.