
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 4, 1991                   TAG: 9104040137
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WOODBURY, CONN.                                LENGTH: Medium

BELL TOLLS FOR PARTY LINES AS UTILITY HANGS THEM UP

In the bucolic towns of western Connecticut, where farmhouses and antiques shops dot the rolling hills, about 100 people are hanging onto a piece of the past: the telephone party line.

But as the Woodbury Telephone Co. starts to upgrade its equipment this spring, the holdouts will all be switched to private lines, forced into the age of computerized telecommunications.

Woodbury Telephone, itself a relic from the days of small, independent phone companies, has received permission from state regulators to replace the last of its two- and four-party lines with private lines.

Southern New England Telephone Co., which serves 1.5 million customers to Woodbury's 16,000 customers, eliminated its last party line in January.

Around the nation, the number of party lines has been steadily decreasing but one study in 1987 by the United States Telephone Association said there were still 2.8 million people on party lines. In 1985, there were 4.6 million party lines, it said.

Although the party line is going the way of hand-cranked telephones, J. Garry Mitchell, Woodbury Telephone's president, sees no reason to mourn. He calls party lines old-fashioned, and has been trying to abolish them for two decades.

"Party lines [are] nothing to be proud of," Mitchell said.

Party lines were popular from 1910 until the early 1960s, he said. Customers share a phone wire but have separate telephone numbers.

Even the people with party lines, mostly older customers, say they've put up with the occasional inconvenience of finding someone else already on the line more for economy than out of a sense of nostalgia.

In 1961, Woodbury Telephone charged $6 a month for a two-party line, $4.95 for a four-party line, and $7.25 for a private line. Today, those costs haven't risen more than 50 cents per month.

Robert Keating, a 61-year-old Woodbury architect who grew up with a party line, says he has one because it's the cheapest way to have separate telephone numbers for his home and the business he operates out of his house.

Still, having party lines is "sort of nice, in a way," he said. "It sort of keeps the town rural, if you want to call it that."

Woodbury Telephone is being allowed to eliminate the service because of a $1.8 million equipment upgrade, Mitchell said. Eliminating party lines also became imperative because of computerized 911 emergency-response systems.

Freida Gauthier, 78, who has had a party line "ever since I had the phone - over 40 years," says she's willing to pay a little extra for the sense of security she will get having the 911 service.

"I live alone," she said.

She, too, has kept the party line because the service is less expensive, and she rarely uses her telephone. She talks fondly of the days when people got much of their news through party lines.

"Other people would listen in to what was going on. That was fun," she said. She quickly added that she had never eavesdropped herself.

by CNB