# Did the Phone Company ever have the ability to determine how many phones you had connected? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 25, 2013, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-phone-company-ever-have-the-ability-to-determine-how-many-phones-you-had-connected/661866 "2013-06-25T13:03:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2013, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-phone-company-ever-have-the-ability-to-determine-how-many-phones-you-had-connected/661866/21 "2013-06-26T04:15:48Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Disconnecting ringers was the trick. In my dorm we had one legit phone, and about 8 illegal ones hooked up. We disconnected the ringers on all but maybe two of them, both to avoid detection and to avoid deafening us when 8 phones went off at once down the hallway. > However, this was MIT so the phone company pretty much had given up. > It was pretty prevalent. When a bunch of us rented a house and the guy came to hook up our legit phone, his last words were “you can hook up your other phones now.” I can second this - we did the same at CMU. I always disconnected the ringers and never got caught, on campus or at home. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2013, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-phone-company-ever-have-the-ability-to-determine-how-many-phones-you-had-connected/661866/22 "2013-06-26T07:02:24Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Because my mother worked for the phone company, it didn’t cost her anything for things like having a technician come out and install wall jacks. So they had jacks everywhere, including the bathroom. IIRC, a standard part of new construction was to have a phone company guy come out and install jacks - for free, I think. We made money on the rentals, the more jacks, the more phones, the more money. Until divestiture, as an AT&T employee I got no perks at all. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2013, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-phone-company-ever-have-the-ability-to-determine-how-many-phones-you-had-connected/661866/23 "2013-06-26T07:16:37Z")
I can remember that my dad went to Radio Shack to buy the wire, plug, and jack. That was when the big 4 prong plugs were in use. Radio Shack was one of the first places where a phone could be bought. I can’t recall exactly when but it was in the early to mid 70’s for sure. Without Radio Shack it would have been difficult for the average home owner to get the necessarily parts to hook up a phone prior to the 70’s. Phone installation was strictly done by Ma Bell. ---
**Author:** ![Running\_with\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@Running\_with\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Running_with_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2013, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-phone-company-ever-have-the-ability-to-determine-how-many-phones-you-had-connected/661866/24 "2013-06-26T18:17:51Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Without Radio Shack it would have been difficult for the average home owner to get the necessarily parts to hook up a phone prior to the 70’s. Well, assuming you could find a phone, not really; pretty much any two-conductor wire will work (I never tried anything thinner than 24ga), and you didn’t need to use AT&T’s 4 prong connector. You could always just hardwire the phone directly. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2013, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-phone-company-ever-have-the-ability-to-determine-how-many-phones-you-had-connected/661866/25 "2013-06-26T18:27:30Z")
I believe it was an extra-cost option to have the 4-prong plug and more than one jack in the house. Until I wired in RJ-11’s around 1980, all the phones in the several houses I knew of were wired in. The plug thing was an upscale kind of deal allowing you to **gasp** move your phone from room to room. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2013, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-phone-company-ever-have-the-ability-to-determine-how-many-phones-you-had-connected/661866/26 "2013-06-26T23:48:06Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Disconnecting ringers was the trick. In my dorm we had one legit phone, and about 8 illegal ones hooked up. We disconnected the ringers on all but maybe two of them, both to avoid detection and to avoid deafening us when 8 phones went off at once down the hallway. > However, this was MIT so the phone company pretty much had given up. > It was pretty prevalent. When a bunch of us rented a house and the guy came to hook up our legit phone, his last words were “you can hook up your other phones now.” > [@RealityChuck](#): > > They did used to sell ringerless phones in the 70s; you could hook them into the line and the phone company couldn’t detect them. In many cases, they were just fine: you’d hear the ring from the main phone and pick up the ringerless extension. Back then all you had to do was hook the phone up with reverse polarity, IOW reverse the \*\*red \*\*and \*\*green \*\*wires. The phone (rotary or touch-tone) would function completely normally \*\*\*except \*\*\*it wouldn’t ring. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2013, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-phone-company-ever-have-the-ability-to-determine-how-many-phones-you-had-connected/661866/27 "2013-06-26T23:59:43Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > Back then all you had to do was hook the phone up with reverse polarity, IOW reverse the \*\*red \*\*and \*\*green \*\*wires. The phone (rotary or touch-tone) would function completely normally \*\*\*except \*\*\*it wouldn’t ring. If I remember right, the way Ma kept people from using touch-tone without paying for it was to reverse the line polarity on that loop. If you used standard polarity, the TT module wouldn’t work. Flip the wires, and it would. ETA: Yes, kiddies, we had to PAY EXTRA for touch-tone dialing. ---
**Author:** ![Running\_with\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@Running\_with\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Running_with_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2013, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-phone-company-ever-have-the-ability-to-determine-how-many-phones-you-had-connected/661866/28 "2013-06-27T00:43:51Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > If I remember right, the way Ma kept people from using touch-tone without paying for it was to reverse the line polarity on that loop. If you used standard polarity, the TT module wouldn’t work. Flip the wires, and it would. I don’t believe that’s correct; while incorrect polarity would cause the touch-tone pad not to make any tones, even if you got tones out of it, the CO would ignore them. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2013, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-phone-company-ever-have-the-ability-to-determine-how-many-phones-you-had-connected/661866/29 "2013-06-27T00:47:55Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > If I remember right, the way Ma kept people from using touch-tone without paying for it was to reverse the line polarity on that loop. If you used standard polarity, the TT module wouldn’t work. Flip the wires, and it would. > > ETA: Yes, kiddies, we had to PAY EXTRA for touch-tone dialing. Back in the early days of being allowed to buy your own phone, many came with Pulse/TT switches. These were useful even for people being honest and using pulse dialing, since companies were just starting to use touch tone signals for menus and stuff. I can confirm that pulse service accepted touch tone. What pissed me off about the extra charge for touch tone is that the cost of a call depends in large part on the amount of time the switch is occupied accepting it, and touch tone calls were cheaper because they were faster to dial. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Downtown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2013, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-phone-company-ever-have-the-ability-to-determine-how-many-phones-you-had-connected/661866/30 "2013-06-27T03:56:02Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > Back then all you had to do was hook the phone up with reverse polarity, IOW reverse the \*\*red \*\*and \*\*green \*\*wires. The phone (rotary or touch-tone) would function completely normally \*\*\*except \*\*\*it wouldn’t ring. Except it would make 8 little tiny dings when you dialed an 8, etc. It’s possible this didn’t happen on phones whose network capacitors were fresh and new. ---
**Author:** ![Terry\_Kennedy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@Terry\_Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terry_Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2013, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-phone-company-ever-have-the-ability-to-determine-how-many-phones-you-had-connected/661866/31 "2013-06-27T05:29:29Z")
> [@Running\_with\_Scissors](#): > > I don’t believe that’s correct; while incorrect polarity would cause the touch-tone pad not to make any tones, even if you got tones out of it, the CO would ignore them. The original inductor-based touchtone pads (types 25 and 35 if my 30-year-old memory isn’t misleading me) would just make a weak “Pluck!” sound if the phone was hooked up with reversed wires. There were solutions for this, called “polarity guards” that could be installed in the phones. And reversing the wires wouldn’t always work to disable the ringer. Older sets were wired with one leg of the ringer on the yellow wire and the other leg on either red or green. This was to pre-configure the phones to work as either non-party-line or the ring party on a party line. I was the only person to actually have working touch-tone on my exchange (it being a stepper-based office, there was no support for touch-tone). I had a converter that listened for tones and pulsed out the digits at 20PPS (twice the rotary dial speed, used for interoffice trunks). Ma Bell actually called the police on me, and they were all amazed that a) I was a 15-year-old kid and b) I had receipts for every single piece of equipment I was using. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2013, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-phone-company-ever-have-the-ability-to-determine-how-many-phones-you-had-connected/661866/32 "2013-06-27T09:11:56Z")
> [@Mr\_Downtown](#): > > Except it would make 8 little tiny dings when you dialed an 8, etc. It’s possible this didn’t happen on phones whose network capacitors were fresh and new. I thought that was prevented by the childishly hilarious named ‘anti-tinkle circuit’? > [@Terry\_Kennedy](#): > > Ma Bell actually called the police on me, and they were all amazed that a) I was a 15-year-old kid and b) I had receipts for every single piece of equipment I was using. That is so awesome! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-phone-company-ever-have-the-ability-to-determine-how-many-phones-you-had-connected/661866.md?page=1)