On Fri, 22 Aug 1997 08:31:14 -0700 David Schmidt <dschmidt@RAIN.ORG>
writes:
>Unless you have Pacific Bell as your phone provider.  They DO NOT
>offer
>distinctive
>ring.  'We would rather sell you another phone line' is a quote I got
>from
>their
>customer representative when I kept pursuing their reason not to offer
>it.
>Dave
>


        Yep, Pacific Bell doesn't offer it here either.  I've always
thought distinctive ring was a new name for the old party line service
where different ring patterns were used for different parties.  Of
course, they later used different ringer frequencies and ringing one side
or the other to ground to separate out the rings to the different
parties.  Maybe you can order a couple numbers on a party line and sort
out the rings that way.
        I haven't looked at all the data that comes down caller ID, but
it SEEMS that it otta include the number being called.  This would be
more machine friendly than distinctive ringing.  Sort of a cheap directed
inward dialing.

Harold