CompuServe Messages

There is a phone service which is sold under various names of which "Identi_Ring" sounds like one of the names. I had it hear as distinctive ring. It allows you to have two or more phone numbers on one incoming phone line. The only difference between a call coming in on one line or the other is the way the phone rings. One line might ring as two short rings and a pause and the other line might ring as two longer rings and a pause. With a special box to sense the ring pattern, it can be usefull for hooking up a fax or modem to answer calls to other phone numbers. Without a ring sensing box you can manually tell if a call is coming into your "Business" line. But calls to both numbers cannot occur at the same time because you really only have one phone line. To get two calls at once you need two phone lines or something like ISDN. It sounds like your friend's father has a distinctive ring connection so he really only gets one call at a time.