| Field |
| Telephones |
| Went Obsolete |
| In the US, mostly following WWII, later for rural areas. |
| Made Obsolete By |
| Individual subscriber lines |
| Knowledge Assumed |
| Normal telephone usage |
| When useful |
| When you find yourself with service on a multisubscriber line |
At one time, phone service for many people was shared with one or more of their neighbors. If you lifted the phone, you could hear your neighbor talking on it if they were on the phone. There was obviously a whole range of etiquette concerns, such as eavesdropping and line-hogging. Early on, when the phone rang, it rang in all the houses on the party line. Each house had a distinctive ring pattern composed of short and long rings, to distinguish which party the call was for, and you had to be able to recognize your ring so as not to answer your neighbor's calls. Later party lines only rang in the house the call was for.
Party lines were cheaper, but another reason for their existence was the very long loops required in rural areas. The phone company did not want to run miles of individual twisted pair for each subscriber.
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