So of course, there was once a time when there were no cell phones. Only land lines. But if you go even further back, like to the mid 20th century, not everyone had their own private phone land line. Many people, especially those who lived in rural areas where it was expensive to run a pair of phone wires to every home, used party lines.
Having a party line meant that you shared a phone line with possibly dozens of other people. That meant that you could not use the phone anytime you wanted to, you had to pick up the phone and listen to see if it was in use. That also meant that if someone was already using the line, anyone else on the same party line could hear the conversation. Needless to say, this caused a few issues. For one, even though people were often told not to hog the line for themselves and limit their calls to 5 minutes, there were always those who did what they wanted anyway. In fact, there was a law that said that if someone got on the party line and declared an emergency, you were supposed to relinquish the line. Sometimes people ignored that rule too. Some people even declared fake emergencies so that they could use the line and bump off whoever was using it at the time.
Ringing was a big problem, because every time the phone rang, you wouldn't know if it was for you until you picked up and listened. They even tried incorporating specific ring sequences to identify who the call was for (the ringing would have been done by a switchboard operator). You still had to listen every time the phone rang to see if it was for you. And nothing prevented you from listening in.
Party lines were in regular use in some parts of North America until the 1990s.
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