> you would only answer calls that rang 5 times How would the person at house 6 ever get a call if house 5 always picked up the phone before it had a chance to

> you would only answer calls that rang 5 times How would the person at house 6 ever get a call if house 5 always picked up the phone before it had a chance to ring 6 times? :) The actual way this worked was the ringing cadence was different for each subscriber: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_line_(telephony) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_line_(telephony)