Historical phone question

Heedtheadvice

So there you have it.

Your recent party line would be the middle of the two descriptions that link describes.

Modern equivalent in some respects is the internet....at least in many respects with multiple signals passing over one communication medium ( aka line) such as from your router.

Outside of the domestic arena, for many a year (even in the early days of the analogue party line to the exchange) modulation and demodulation of a carrier and multiplexing of signals (in a variety of forms) was used to combine and separate them.

onomatopoeia99

J_B said:

DACS?

This will be the answer, it replaced the party lines used 40+ years ago, but limited the speed that dial-up modems could negotiate and makes broadband impossible,

Technical stuff about it can be found on wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_access_carrier_system

Oneye12

Back in the 1970's whilst working at University, our remote Department had a 3 party line.

Not part of BT and had an exchange in the Main Building; the call 'semaphore' was simple - 1 ring for them, 2 rings for the others and 3 rings for you.

Mainly used for incoming calls, situated at the bottom of a staircase so was never going to be private; and very difficult to call out as invariably busy.