Report of the Committee Appointed to Consider the Whole Question of Rural Telephones, of the Terms on which they Should be Installed and Operated, and of their Connection with Trunk Lines (Kenya, 1929).

Rural telephone lines are at present defined by the Post Office as country lines running into Post Offices at which a public exchange has not yet been established or into a Railway Station, or other centre at which such switching as may be necessary is performed. A rural line may be either for the sole use of a single subscriber or a number of subscribers may be connected to the same line, in which case the line is known as a ‘party line.’ A system of code ringing enables any subscriber on a ‘party line’ to identify calls intended for him. Subscribers on the same ‘party line’ can communicate with each other at any time during the 24 hours, but if a rural system comprises more than one party line, subscribers on different lines can only communicate with each other during such times as someone is in attendance at the switching point into which the lines are led.