Bob Jones wrote in a message to Roy J. Tellason:

 BJ> 
 BJ> I use distinctive ring to allow my BBS to answer one phone number 
 BJ> and my voice calls to not be answered by the BBS and instead be
 BJ> answered by me, all on the same, single phone line.

 RJT> I guess the phone company around here likes to collect the money 
 RJT> for more than one line,  instead.  Maybe it's a matter of 
 RJT> population density,  or something, they provide that capability 
 RJT> when they don't have all that many actual wire pairs left to 
 RJT> offer people?

 BJ> Based on your BBS origin line, I assume you are in the United
 BJ> States... 

Yes.

 BJ>  [Let's see...  Isn't area code 717 in California?]

South central Pennsylvania.  The major metropolitan area being Harrisburg, 
the state capital,  though I'm a ways outside of it.  Maybe you're thinking
of 714,  which is in southern CA.

 BJ> If in the United States, then distinctive ring is avaliable.  The
 BJ> phone company may call it something else...  I don't remember all
 BJ> the names I've heard for it. 

I've seen a lot of references to it over the years,  but have never seen it
offered that I can recall.  And I've looked over the listings in the white
pages that detail what they have to offer now and then.

 BJ> Basically, the phone company is selling the party line switch 
 BJ> capability to you with out having to wire a second location to the 
 BJ> same line.   And in (most?) paarts of the country, party 
 BJ> lines have been getting phased out.

When I first got a phone in PA (moved here from NYC about 25 years ago), 
they asked me if I wanted a party line or a private line.  I remember being
offered that choice one time subsequent to that,  but not in a long time. 
I suppose it's been possible,  but I wouldn't want one anyway.  Again, 
such a thing comes back to there not being enough wires available to take
care of the customers that are out there,  though in the case of party
lines I'd also guess that the central office equipment wasn't up to the job
either.

 BJ> I used to have a friend who's house was still (officially) on a 
 BJ> party line for a very long time -- grandfathered into the 
 BJ> category....  I don't remember exactly when, but I believe the 
 BJ> phone company finally dropped the designation here...  So, unless 
 BJ> you are in some backwater where party lines are still the norm, I 
 BJ> would expect distinctive ring should be available.  It may be that 
 BJ> the phone company doesn't want to pay for a needed software 
 BJ> update.... 

Maybe,  or maybe they just like to be able to make more money by offering
more actual physical lines.  I just looked over what they offer again,  and
they only mention one thing that's even close to this distinctive ring
thingy,  which they call "priority call",  and apparently gives
you a distinctive ring for only _six_ numbers to call you.

 BJ> I have a seperate box that uses caller ID that screens my voice
 BJ> calls.

 RJT> I have a couple of those on hand as well.  Don't use 'em,  
 RJT> though.  And somewhere around here I have some bits of info as to 
 RJT> how bink can deal with that as well.

 BJ> You have a couple of Bouncer-200 boxes laying around?  I haven't
 BJ> seen those available for years.....  Probably don't work with call
 BJ> waiting caller ID, but do a nice job for screening calls to the
 BJ> answering machine based on caller ID info.....

These are just caller-ID displays.  Looks like they came from Radio Shack.

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