2-line cordless phones may be advisable for homes in which more than 4 people live, especially if some members are phone buffs.
It is only natural that your cordless phone should be one of the more sought after gadgets in the house.
This is because carrying on long conversations will cost less with cordless phones than with cell phones.
The problem about cordless phones is that the user can use it outside of the house.
Cordless phones may have effective ranges measuring for miles around the house and if talkative Tom suddenly decides to bring the cordless with him to his friend's house, there is no way you can make him put it down from where you are in the house and you will just have to wait for him to run out of topics before you yourself can make that important phone call.
Most cordless phones are dual- or multiple-line ready.
How can you tell if yours is? If you can examine the wires on the main apparatus of the phone and you find that there are more than one pair of wires, for each additional pair of wires, another line can be installed on the phone.
In case you have decided that a 2-line cordless phone is needed in your house, you could also inform your phone company about your intentions.
They will take the trouble of inspecting your main phone apparatus and upgrading its wires if necessary.
Getting a 2-line phone makes it possible for you to have your own private line along in there with the line that the rest of your family is using in one apparatus.
The other people in the house don't even have to know that there is another communication conduit running through the house.
To keep the 2-line phone a secret, assign the same ring tone for both lines.
In this way, calls made on one line will be indistinguishable from the other one.
However, whether others get to know about it or not, your communication needs are ensured by your own private line for so long as you don't divulge the number to them.
On the other hand, if you are a firm believer in the democratic lifestyle, you could make the second line available for everyone else at home.
In general, for a home, this is not a wise move because knowing that there are 2-lines available for everyone may encourage some members of the family to indulge themselves more than ever in making useless phone calls.
In a business establishment where people are aware of the proper protocol for most things, making the fact that a 2-line cordless phone is available may ease the communication traffic and contribute to getting the work done faster and easier.
To avoid people taking calls they shouldn't be taking, you may assign a different ring tone for each line in the 2-line cordless phone.
In this way, people will know from whom any call was meant.
This has its pro's and con's depending on whether the people in the office will see it as an opportunity to gossip or a chance to avoid communication deadlocks.